services: migrate legacy ntpd pages to MVC/API

[Greelan]

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Moderately-sized project to tackle the long term goal of removing all static PHP pages from core.

This one is on my list, and is already in-progress.

[fichtner]

This isn't a good target. One reason is the advanced configuration still being in place. We decided against it for the current roadmap.

Cheers,
Franco

[Greelan]

I'd assumed that the custom_options would be deprecated like was done for Dnsmasq. Perhaps with advance notice in case additional key settings need to be included in the UI for some users. I realise it is not on the current roadmap, but presumably it will be done at some point.

I will continue to work on it in my free time and then leave it to you guys to decide eventually what you want to do with it.

[fichtner]

I'm just not sure if it's justifiable to test the model migration afterwards which is harder to do if the initial design is not done by the same person. There are a number of things here at play: time servers not in the right container, a new twist to dealing with legacy custom configuration, potential fringe boolean values in old data "yes" instead of 1/true. All of these could break the way NTP works for users and the design takes a lot of internal (and most of the time invisible) communication.

Cheers,
Franco

[Greelan]

I've already dealt with and identified those lurgies.

Anyway, as I said, up to you guys what you want to do with it - reject it completely if you want (I'm getting used to that lol).

[EmperorArthur]

Random user jumping in here.

I'm super excited about the idea of moving completely away from the legacy pages. However, there's also at list one thing to consider @Greelan where the new version may be better as a plugin than just a direct migration.

ntpd isn't the only game in town. Specifically, Chrony exists, and some companies prefer it over ntpd.

[sopex]

I would also like to see chrony as the default on 27.1
But it needs some exploration.

[fichtner]

I do not see a reasonably large argument to risk this (including switch chrony to core and deprecating NTP) and it counters the argument to move NTP to MVC while at it.

[sopex]

Chrony has some cool features and with almost the entirety of Linux adopting it, it seems stable enough to make the switch.

NTPsec might also be a good middle ground.

But rebuilding the whole network time to mvc and staying with ntpd seems a bit counterintuitive.

I am not pro moving NTP to MVC right now either way. There are firewall pages that would take priority on my mind. Especially, the normalization and outbound pages.