On Feb 11, 2014, at 11:22 AM, Tim Shepard wrote: > > >>>> People have been working for the past 15 years to make leap seconds >>>> better, yet in the last leap second all Linux kernels crashed due >>>> to a subtle bug that is only triggered when there was a leap second. >>> >>> My understanding wasn't that all Linux kernels crashed. >> >> Only the ones which cared enough about time-keeping to run NTPD. > > ... and that were running a particular old-but-not-too-old version of > the Linux kernel. And it didn't happen everywhere. And it didn't > crash machines, just got them very busy looping blocked by in-kernel > locks (which is perhaps worse than a crash, depending on what > matters). > > The patch to fix the bug was published in main-line Linux more than > three months before the leap second occured: > > > https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=6b43ae8a619d17c4935c3320d2ef9e92bdeed05d > > but the patch didn't get deployed everywhere it needed to be deployed, > and the wedge up of some web site server farms made news: > > > http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/leap-second-glitch-explained/all/
Right, but none of that detracts from my original point... Leap seconds caused a problem in a widely deployed, presumably widely tested kernel when they should have been well enough known and tested to not to. Warner _______________________________________________ LEAPSECS mailing list LEAPSECS@leapsecond.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/leapsecs
