[ntp:hackers] Leap second support in versions prior to 4.2.6

Warner Losh imp at bsdimp.com
Sat Jun 2 18:40:16 UTC 2012


On Jun 2, 2012, at 11:23 AM, Brian Utterback wrote:

> On 6/2/2012 12:44 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
>> 
>> Certainly the two versions I have been looking at only send out the indicator on the last day of the month. However, since later versions of NTP are supposed to deal with round-trip times in excess of 24 hours (NTP on Mars), that doesn't seem viable for them.
>> Round trips to mars don't take 24 hours.  Speed of light, worst case, is measured in tens of minutes.
>> 
>> Warner
>> 
> 
> I know that. The point I was making is that the NTP on Mars project allows for very long round trip times and very long times between updates. With that it is not feasible to propagate a leap second indicator to all servers at all levels withing 24 hours. Or at least, not reliably.

Leap seconds on Mars doesn't make much sense...  Except for keeping synchronized with earth, they are a time appendix at best....  But my views on the practicality of leap seconds as a synchronization mechanism on earth are well known...

Warner



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