[LEAPSECS] [time-nuts] Leap Quirks

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <alpine.LSU.2.00.0901051819010.10002 at hermes-1.csi.cam.ac.uk>
            Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> writes:

: On Mon, 5 Jan 2009, Rob Seaman wrote:

: >

: > The recent leap second passed (yet again) with no major issues.

: 

: Wrong.

: 

: Loads of Oracle RAC servers crashed because of a bug triggered by the

: clock going backwards.

: 

: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/msg13857.html

: 

: Many time dissemination systems got it wrong, as usual.


Add to that the whole Linux kernel hang problem that some users
experienced because there was a printf that was called with locks
held...  Usually it worked, but for a small percentage of users it
hung...


: I wonder why OS vendors don't ship ntpd preconfigured with a leapseconds

: table that is updated as part of the OS's normal patching process. I hope

: that would reduce the amount of manual maintenance required for stratum 1

: servers and increase the reliability of NTP's leap second handling.

 
Does ntpd actually use the leap seconds table in preference to what
remote systems are telling it?  I recall years ago trying to configure
things and not being able to make this work reliably...


: Obviously leap seconds are so important that we can't do without them,

: but so unimportant that it doesn't matter that we can't get them to

: work properly.


<nod>

Warner