F-ckin Leap Seconds, how do they work?

Peter Lothberg roll at Stupi.SE
Thu Jul 5 17:41:31 UTC 2012


> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 11:59 PM, Majdi S. Abbas <msa at latt.net> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 03, 2012 at 11:33:35PM -0400, Tyler Haske wrote:
> >> 4 years. These things are supposed to be synced to a NTP source
> >> anyway.
> >>
> >> Easiest solution is just remove leap second functionality from
> >> mainline code, and make it something you have to special-compile for.
> >
> >         Please reconcile these two statements.
> >
> >         Thanks,
> >
> >         --msa
> 
> Someone running an NTP Server connected to a cesium clock could run
> the leap-second time code. Since its *their job* to have the correct
> time, they can do all the fancy rarely used things that make parts of
> the Internet die every couple of years.

A "cesium clock" don't knew it should do leap seconds unless you tell
it, and it only affects the display and the internal time of the
clock.. -:)  The S1 NTP server and it's host OS has to be told to set
the leap-second indicator by hand to.. 

But all the system on the internet has to knew what to do with this
information. 

In the case of a host_os that do not knew about leap-seconds, NTP will
have the correct time and then try to stear the host as fast as it can
to loose/gain a second.. 

-P




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