Re: *Request For Feedback*: TimeOwner in phosphor-timemanager

[vishwa <vishwa@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

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On 12/19/19 1:29 AM, Kun Yi wrote:
>

>
> On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 7:02 AM vishwa <vishwa@linux.vnet.ibm.com 
> <mailto:vishwa@linux.vnet.ibm.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hello community,
>
>     Would be really great if there is any feedback on this.
>
>     Have a happy holidays !!
>
>     !! Vishwa !!
>
>     On 12/11/19 3:24 PM, vishwa wrote:
>>     On 12/11/19 12:17 AM, Pine, Kathryn ElaineX wrote:
>>>
>>>     >*Do we need this going forward ?*: I am being asked by UX team
>>>     about the need of this and I mentioned I would get the community
>>>     feedback on this. Although, I feel this level of granularity
>>>     gives control over how we can manage time, it would not justify
>>>     the complexity if the customers don't appreciate it. Removing
>>>     the TimeOwner would make the code a lot simpler.
>>>
>>>     Hi,
>>>
>>>     I am coming from the UX side of how we set the date time
>>>     settings page up for phosphor-webui downstream recently. We
>>>     switched our page to use Redfish, here’s how ours is set up now:
>>>
>>>     There is no longer a “time owner” and the setting is either:
>>>
>>>     NTPEnabled: true or false
>>>
>>>     If false, we are not allowing the user to set the time, because
>>>     the BMC is synching from the host time and therefore any
>>>     settings we made to the time on the BMC would be overwritten.
>>>
>>>     If true, we use the NTP server(s) the user provides.
>>>
>>>     We are testing this currently.
>>>
>>
>>     Hi, Thank you for the response. From what I interpreted:
>>
>>     - TimeOwner is not settable via GUI
>>     - Irrespective of NTP setting, the user is not allowed to set the
>>     time on BMC
>>     - BMC is syncing the time from Host.
>>        - This means, the current TimeOwner is "Host" and NTP is off.
>>     Is that being set as default ?
>>
>>     I am requesting for feedback from the community on the need of
>>     TimeOwner feature that we have in Settings and timemanager code.
>>
>>     !! Vishwa !!
>>>
> My 2cents here along with a few questions:
> - how does the current time manager interact with systemd-timesyncd?

TimeManager interacts with systemd-timedated, which in turn engages 
systemd-timesync on setting *NTP *policy.
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-timesyncd.service.html**

> - From my experience, BMC time can drift a lot easily and it is more 
> useful to have the BMC time synced externally

This is a discussion point for using / not using NTP. It would not 
impact TimeOwner
https://github.com/openbmc/phosphor-time-manager/blob/master/README.md

> - Whether NTP or host time is preferred should be left to the platform 
> designer to decide

If the setting is NTP, then Host can not set the time on BMC unless the 
Owner is SPLIT.
I believe, you are saying more from a NTP / Non NTP as opposed to 
TimeOwner ?

> - sounds like it would be more straightforward to have the 'Owner' 
> reflect one time source: NTP/IPMI/Redfish

This is part of TimeSynchronization. TimeOwner is another layer on who 
owns the time as opposed to how the time is set.
Hopefully the README I pointed to before would help.

Thank you,
!! Vishwa !!
>
> -- 
> Regards,
> Kun

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