Missing NTP client *systemd-timesyncd*

[paulmenzel]

Since systemd 247.9-2, systemd-timesyncd is only a recommended instead of depended on:

• Demote systemd-timesyncd from Depends to Recommends. This avoids a dependency cycle between systemd and systemd-timesyncd and thus makes dist upgrades more predictable and robust. It also allows minimal, systemd based containers where no NTP client is strictly necessary. To ensure that systemd-timesyncd is installed in a default installation created by d-i, bump its priority to standard. (Closes: #986651, #993947)

I added systemd-timesyncd to packages, but should grml-debootstrap install an NTP client by default?

[mika]

It's a Recommends only in Debian/bullseye and Debian/unstable:

% apt-cache show systemd/bullseye | grep -e Version -e systemd-timesyncd
Version: 247.3-7
Recommends: dbus, systemd-timesyncd | time-daemon
% apt-cache show systemd/unstable | grep -e Version -e systemd-timesyncd
Version: 251.4-1
Recommends: default-dbus-system-bus | dbus-system-bus, systemd-timesyncd | time-daemon

AFAICT it made it as a strict dependency (as in Depends) only into the systemd backport for buster (see https://packages.debian.org/buster-backports/systemd), but also not into buster (see https://packages.debian.org/buster/systemd). So from my PoV it never was a hard dependency in any actual Debian/release, or am I missing something?

[paulmenzel]

No, I missed, that it’s different between the suites. As grml-debootstrap allows to install different suites like sid/unstable, I wonder if it can be supported for all suites.

[mika]

AFAICT this is not a bug, so I'd suggest we close this, unless we need to change/fix something, please report then :)