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Leap Second Coming In June, 2012

Posted by timothy on from the they're-calling-it-a-time-step dept.

Zoxed writes "IERS have just announced a leap second due at midnight, June 30th this year. Are your systems ready?" The last leap second added was at the end of 2008.

4 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. I won't care by aglider · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use NTP on my systems!
    They fix the timers, I got mine fixed. Automagically!

    --
    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
    1. Re:I won't care by Soft · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not just NTP; the reference implementation. On the machines I checked last time around, those with the reference implementation handled time correctly; those with OpenNTPD just ignored the leap second and resynchronized later. I'll check again next summer, we'll see what happens.

  2. OpenNTPD by klapaucjusz · · Score: 4, Informative

    OpenNTPD just ignored the leap second

    OpenNTPD has clearly been written by someone who doesn't understand NTP. For example, it advertises incorrect root delay and disperson values, which can cause clients to fail to achieve a majority vote, or to pick the wrong peer to synchronise against. (Earlier versions were even worse, they advertised themselves as being at stratum 0, which could cause synchronisation loops; this has thankfully been fixed, but it doesn't inspire much confidence in the authors' competence.)

    I've also found OpenNTP to fail to regulate the local clock on dodgy hardware (it would oscillate wildly, with an amplitude of 3 seconds or so), in situations where the reference ntpd coped just fine.

    Folks, do yourself and everyone a favour -- run the reference NTP, run chrony, heck, run some SNTP client, but please avoid OpenNTPD.

    1. Re:OpenNTPD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have written most of OpenNTPD. Besides a lot of other stuff.

      And to be honest, I am sick and tired of wasting energy on each and every unfounded accusation someone posts somewhere. So I won't go into detail.

      First of, portable or native OpenNTPD (native = the one that comes with OpenBSD)? That is a drastic difference, not just because the portable is ancient (if anyone cares, please maintain the portable, I'll happily put it up. And not just promises, I got a lot of them).

      Then, looking at ntpd alone doesn't cut it. OpenNTPD uses a different approach than most (all?) others, it leaves the timekeeping to the kernel where it belongs. And we adjusted the kernel subsystem for it on OpenBSD.

      and just one thing i want to pick out of the unfounded accusations:
      "I've also found OpenNTP to fail to regulate the local clock on dodgy hardware"
      that isn't OpenNTPD failing, that is your system's adjtime(2) failing.

      And now excuse me please, I prefer to spend my free time on writing code or with my friends.