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Network Time Protocol Leap Smear REFID
draft-stenn-ntp-leap-smear-refid-02

Document Type Expired Internet-Draft (ntp WG)
Expired & archived
Author Harlan Stenn
Last updated 2019-09-26 (Latest revision 2019-03-25)
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status (None)
Formats
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Candidate for WG Adoption
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Expired
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)

This Internet-Draft is no longer active. A copy of the expired Internet-Draft is available in these formats:

Abstract

Leap Seconds are part of UTC. NTP timestamps are based on POSIX timestamps, which require each day to have exactly 86,400 seconds per day. Some applications and environments choose to "smear" leap second corrections over a period that can last up to 24 hours' time, and implement NTP servers that offer smeared time to clients asking them for the time. Both NTP clients and operators have no current way to tell if an NTP server is offering leap-smeared time or not. This is a problem. Similarly, an NTP server may choose to offer leap-smeared time to clients that do not appear to know that a leap event is in-process. This is a problem. This proposal offers a mechanism that provides a simple and clean solution to problems, by giving a way that clients (and operators) can trivially ask for leap-smeared time and detect a server that is offering leap-smeared time.

Authors

Harlan Stenn

(Note: The e-mail addresses provided for the authors of this Internet-Draft may no longer be valid.)