Bug#962614: ntp: leap-seconds.list not updated and update-leap does not read ntp.conf correctly.

[Ken]

Package: ntp
Version: 1:4.2.8p12+dfsg-4
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

I have started to receive errors such as the following:

Jun 10 14:08:24 blackab3 ntpd[592]: leapsecond file ('/usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list'): will expire in less than 18 days

I tried to run update-leap to update the file, but received the following error:

No leapfile directive in /etc/ntp.conf; leapfile location not known

Looking in ntp.conf, I see the following:

# Leap seconds definition provided by tzdata
leapfile /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list

I hand edited a test ntp.conf with just the setting (incase the file was corrupt), but it gave the error.

Running the command with the direct option worked:

update-leap -L /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list

This is strange, the ntp.conf file appears correct - but it is not being read by update-leap.

-Ken

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 10.3
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages ntp depends on:
ii adduser 3.118
ii libc6 2.28-10
ii libcap2 1:2.25-2
ii libedit2 3.1-20181209-1
ii libopts25 1:5.18.12-4
ii libssl1.1 1.1.1d-0+deb10u3
ii lsb-base 10.2019051400
ii netbase 5.6
ii tzdata 2019c-0+deb10u1

Versions of packages ntp recommends:
ii perl 5.28.1-6
ii sntp 1:4.2.8p12+dfsg-4

Versions of packages ntp suggests:
pn ntp-doc <none>

-- no debconf information

[Giulio Turetta]

Dear Maintainer and Ken,

the update-leap script needs quotation marks around leapfile's path at
/usr/bin/update-leap:162

$LEAPFILE = $1 if /^ *leapfile\s+"(\S+)"/;

To solve this problem is possible to add quotes around leapfile's path
in /etc/ntp.conf.

leapfile "/usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list"

It's also possible to solve by patching the regexp at

$LEAPFILE = $1 if /^ *leapfile\s+"?([^"]+)"?/;

Anyway Bernhard suggested the best solution.
Just apt update && apt install tzdata.

Giulio