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Stormlord
Asked: 2024-12-28 07:08:43 +0800 CST

Log message about the leapsecond file from ntpd

  • 772

This message has started appearing in the journal log from ntpd.

leapsecond file ('/usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list'): will expire in less than one day

What is it and how is it fixed please?

ntp

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    What is it?

    The /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list file contains a list of all past and announced future leap seconds; see The Internet Time Service and Leap Seconds in NIST Internet Time Service (ITS).

    ntpd uses this file to determine when to insert a leap second.

    leap-seconds.list contains a Expire date in NTP timestamp which is used by ntpd to:

    I don't think an expired leap-seconds.list will cause ntpd to fail, as long as there is no future leap second which occurs before an update to the leap-seconds.list used by ntpd.

    How is it fixed please?

    By an update to the tzdata package. The current available version of that package on Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS is 2024a-3ubuntu1.1 in which the /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list file contains:

    #   2) Expiration date of the file given on a semi-annual basis: last June or last December
#
#   File expires on 28 December 2024
#
#   Expire date in NTP timestamp:
#
#@  3944332800

    Looking on an AlmaLinux 8.10 system:

    • AlmaLinux is using tzdata-2024b-4.el8.noarch. I.e. the 2024b time zone data rather than the 2024a time zone data used by Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS.
    • The /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list on AlmaLinux has contains the following later expiry date: 
      # 2) Expiration date of the file given on a semi-annual basis: last June or last December
#
# File expires on 28 June 2025
#
# Expire date in NTP timestamp:
#
#@    3960057600

    Comparing the leap-seconds.list from the 2024a time zone data (installed on Ubuntu) and 2024b time zone data (installed on AlmaLinux) shows no difference in the LIST OF LEAP SECONDS part of the file. I.e. the list of leap seconds used by ntpd on Ubuntu should be valid until the end of June 2025.

    Before then, Ubuntu should hopefully have have released a 2024b version of the tzdata package.

    Looking on launchpad there are the following which have a status of "Fix Committed", importance "high" and last update on 2024-12-16:

    Hopefully this means an update to the Ubuntu tzdata packages for different releases to fix the issue are imminent.

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