[ntp:hackers] smearing the leap second

Harlan Stenn stenn at ntp.org
Fri Jul 10 19:45:31 UTC 2015


Mike,

Mike S writes:
> On 7/9/2015 5:48 PM, Harlan Stenn wrote:
> > We still see huge numbers of people running very old versions of NTP.
> > How do you propose to get lots of devices to get upgraded kernels in
> > order to properly handle a leap second?
> 
> That's not NTP's problem to solve. It's a device issue.

This isn't a problem that can be solved with a single solution.

What about the bigger picture, doing data analysis on timestamped data
across multiple devices?  What about apps that will crash because of the
backward step?

Please offer *practical* answers here.

> > If they *do* properly handle the leap second, how do you get lots of
> > instances of *appliations* to properly handle what looks to them like a
> > backward time step?
> 
> Ditto, except it is an NTP issue since it only looks like a backward 
> time step because the canonical implementation of NTP doesn't follow its 
> own RFC, and doesn't use a monotonic timescale. If NTP did it right, 
> there wouldn't be any issue.

What are you talking about?

H


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