Bugzilla Bug 110674

The (empty) file /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift should not be created by the ebuild.
This is because ntpd will create this file when first started and store
information about the local clock in this file. If the file is present ntpd will
not perform this important initial calibration. See man ntpd.

Actually ntpd logs an error message when started the first time:
 Oct 28 09:46:15 gollum ntpd[3622]: Frequency format error in /var/lib/ntp/ntp.drift
because the drift file is present but empty.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

it does it because there were reports iirc about the drift file not being able
to be created properly due to permission issues

if you remove the file and run in droproot mode, does ntpd generate the file
properly ?

Droproot is not enabled by default. But the drift file is created by default.
So
the behaviour is not consistent. I expect an ebuild to work out of the box if I
don't change anything, not the opposite.

droproot is enabled by default

USE=-nodroproot + conf.d/ntpd has NTPD_OPTS="-u ntp:ntp"

Oh, true. Sorry. Well, it doesn't matter anyway. The drift file is created
correctly as ntp has it's own folder in /var/lib. And an empty drift file is
invalid in any case.

Any progress on this issue?

ntpd will create the ntp.drift file with proper ownership if it is absent, so I
believe removing the "touch" and "fowners" lines for ntp.drift from the ebuild
should be enough.

the other reason the touch is there is to prevent portage from being helpful
and removing the otherwise empty directory on us

ive changed the dodir to keepdir and dropped the touch/fowners