[systemd-devel] systemd-timesyncd with read-only root filesystem

[André Hartmann]

Hi Martin,

thanks for keeping our dialog alive :)

To sum up again what I actually want to achive:

I want to use NTP after bootup by default, but in case no NTP is 
available, the user should be able to set the date and time by hand
with timedatectl. But timedatectl refuses to do so, if "NTP is enabled".

And this is my main problem: I don't know how timedatectl decides
if NTP is enabled or not.

The one and only thing I need, is to set the date by hand if necessary. 
Preferable without file write access in /etc. The configuration of most 
of our programs is fixed, and for the ones that need it, we have a 
symlink to a writeable partition. I didn't get this to work for the time 
configuration so far.

>> Which confuses me is the inconsistency between
>> "systemctl status systemd.timesyncd" and "timedatectl status":
>>
>> # systemctl status systemd.timesyncd
>> *  systemd.timesyncd.service
>>    Loaded: not-found (Reason: No such file or directory)
>>    Active: inactive (dead)
>>
>> # timedatectl status
>>       Local time: Wed 2016-12-07 16:18:06 UTC
>>   Universal time: Wed 2016-12-07 16:18:06 UTC
>>         RTC time: n/a
>>        Time zone: Universal (UTC, +0000)
>>      NTP enabled: yes
>> NTP synchronized: no
>>  RTC in local TZ: no
>>       DST active: n/a
>
> I don't see an inconsistency? If timedated is not running then
> timedatectl can't actualy talk to it and just shows values which it
> can make up by itself.

The inconsistence here is, that timesyncd is not running/dead (could not 
be started because no valid symlink to 
/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd exists) but timedatectl insists 
that NTP is enabled.

Thanks for your help,
André