[ntp:questions] A Suggestion For Abolishing the Leap Second
mills at udel.edu
mills at udel.edu
Wed Jun 6 18:26:27 UTC 2007
Guy,
The "kernel clock" is an atomic variable that increments once each
second. A leap is implemented following the increment at second 23:59 at
which time the kernel clock is decremented, with the net effect the
second remains the same as during second 23:59. That's how the kernel
works, and I apologize for whatever confusion has been caused.
The issue about stepping backware is more subtle. Sometimes the clock
discipline needs to correct the clock backwards a smidgin. In the code
that leaves here the clock is stopped if the backward correction is less
than one second and stepped if more than that. In this context a step
would only occur if a backwards step more than one second was made by
the Unix settimeofday() was called.
Dave
Guy Macon wrote:
> David L. Mills wrote:
>
>
>>Guy Macon wrote:
>>
>>The kernel clock reading routine...
>>
>>
>>>The NTP clock...
>
>
> Just to make sure I am not confused, do the clock kept by the
> kernal and the clock transmitted by the NTP protocol track
> each other (ignoring small errors/offsets) as they traverse
> the leap second? I need to study the references given further,
> but the descriptions of NTP seem to describe a clock that jumps
> back a second while the descriptions of the kernel seem to
> describe a clock that is monotonic and never jumps backward.
>
> That's how I read the figure at
> [ http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/leap.html ].
>
> Could it be that I read a post about "the clock" stopping and
> assumed from it being posted in comp.protocols.time.ntp that
> it refferred to the NTP clock, followed by my posting about
> "the clock" and getting a reply that assumed from the fact that
> the post I replied to was about the kernel clock that I was
> also referring to the kernel clock? Of course I, being a hardware
> engineer and in no way an expert in this area, may be totally
> misunderstanding things. If so, please forgive my ignorance.
>
More information about the questions
mailing list