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The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready?

Posted by Soulskill on from the about-time dept.

Tmack writes "The last time we had a leap second, sysadmins were taken a bit by surprise when a random smattering of systems locked up (including Slashdot itself) due to a kernel bug causing a race condition specific to the way leap seconds are handled/notified by ntp. The vulnerable kernel versions (prior to 2.6.29) are still common amongst older versions of popular distributions (Debian Lenny, RHEL/CentOS 5) and embedded/black-box style appliances (Switches, load balancers, spam filters/email gateways, NAS devices, etc). Several vendors have released patches and bulletins about the possibility of a repeat of last time. Are you/your team/company ready? Are you upgraded, or are you going to bypass this by simply turning off NTP for the weekend?" Update: 07/01 03:14 GMT by S : ZeroPaid reports that this issue took down the Pirate Bay for a few hours.

8 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Irony by bughunter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Leap years = no problem.

    Leap seconds = kernel panic.

    I fear for teh internets if we try a leap millisecond.

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  2. More important than kernel issues by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    For those wondering whether they get one more second of sleep tonight or one less, the rule is 'spring forwards, fall back, summer stand there looking confused'.

  3. Re:Haha by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Enjoy your free operating system that was stopped by an extra second.

    Yes, because we've NEVER seen Windows have problems dealing with things like Daylight Savings...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  4. Re:as of about a year ago, I started defensive cod by JustNiz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Our servers run on octal, you insensitive clod.

  5. Re:Haha by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Windows: 95. Scene: LAN party. Game: Descent. Hilarity: All the Windows users cursing loudly as their computers spontaneously reboot for DST. DOS users get to feel smug for a change.

    Windows has been boning DST as long as Windows has handled your RTC.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. Re:Goddamned Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    All my Java processes peg the CPU since the leap second, even if I restart them. Maybe a reboot will help...

    So just like before, then?

  7. Re:How is this an issue? by keeboo · · Score: 4, Funny

    What the heck is the opposite of a leap second?
    A leap anti-second?

  8. Re:Leap second got Reddit? by painandgreed · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looks like Reddit's systems weren't ready for the leap second. It been down since around midnight (UTC). You'd think a site as big as that would be ready for such an event.

    Have you tried truing it off and turning it on again?