Les Mikesell wrote:
On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 1:50 PM, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
I don't think I need to 'prove' that computer programs do repeatable things. I just want to know the version numbers that need to be installed - something relatively easy to check.
<snip> Two other thoughts: first, that it worked perfectly fine the last leap second, and second, that ntpd, according to the manpage, can and will adjust for seconds of difference with no problem at all, since that's it's job.
Errr, no. It did _not_ work fine in the last leap second. If you run threaded applications (including, but not exclusively, java) or applications that called usleep the kernel would spin with 100% CPU use until you reset the date with some means other than ntp. How could you have missed that: http://www.wired.com/2012/07/leap-second-bug-wreaks-havoc-with-java-linux/.
Every other sysadmin in the world got calls in the middle of the night to fix their servers.
Ah, the system was fine, it was java that failed. And we've got a few tomcat apps... but IIRC, we fixed them the next day - we're "tier 3", and so "not critical", and could do that.
mark