Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2017 10:51:15
From: Kynn Jones <kynnjo@gmail.com>
To: Debian User <debian-user@lists.debian.org>
Subject: How to get around ntpd catch-22?
Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2017 14:51:44 +0000 (UTC)
Resent-From: debian-user@lists.debian.org
I installed Debian on a (legacy) Optiplex 9010 desktop, using a minimal USB
installation image, and netinst. IOW, most of the contents of this
installation came in through the network (which rules out the most serious
hardware issues).
One day later, the network connection suddenly stopped working, at all.
For example, the response to `ping 8.8.8.8` is now `connect: Network is
unreachable`.
The problem is with the computer not with the jack, because if I plug a
different computer to the same jack the connection works fine.
I did not touch any network-related config files, so I can't begin to guess
what could have caused this sudden failure.
If I run `/etc/init.d/networking restart`, the output just says `Restarting
networking (via systemctl): networking.service`. At the end of this
message I post the relevant lines from the output I get if I then run
`journalctl -xe` immediately after.
One can see that the restart of the network is failing due to an ntpd
problem.
If I attempt to restart ntpd, I get the error "Failed to start
ntpd.service: Unit nptd.service not found."
This makes no sense to me: ntpd was clearly available and working for
several hours before this sudden failure. The package is definitely
installed, and the error above persists even after I run `dpkg-reconfigure
-p low ntp` (which requires no input from me).
The only fix I can think of at this point would be to reinstall ntp
altogether, but I can't do this without an internet connection, so I have a
Catch-22 situation.
How can I fix this problem without having an internet connection?
---
Aug 17 10:00:42 myhost ntpd[757]: error resolving pool 3.debian.pool.ntp.org:
Temporary failure in name resolution (-3)
Aug 17 10:00:45 myhost systemd[1]: Stopping Raise network interfaces...
-- Subject: Unit networking.service has begun shutting down
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support