Re: [LEAPSECS] Introduction of long term scheduling

From: Zefram <zefram_at_FYSH.ORG>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:12:49 +0000

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
>Firstly, I agree with Steve when he asks "why bother?". You're solving the
>wrong problem.

Conciseness is useful for network protocols. Bandwidth is increasingly
the limiting factor: CPU speed and bulk storage sizes have been
increasing faster. An NTPv3 packet is only 48 octets of UDP payload;
if a leap second table is to be disseminated in the same packets then
we really do want to think about the format nybble by nybble.

I'd like whatever format we use to be able to explicitly state its
starting point. That way a long table can be split up into smaller
chunks, to fit a fixed-size field in synchronisation packets. Time
servers could send out a randomly-selected chunk of table with each
packet, so that clients pick up the complete table over time without
having to do anything special.

-zefram
Received on Mon Jan 08 2007 - 02:13:18 PST