Re: [dhcwg] [ntpwg] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-ogud-dhc-udp-time-option-01.txt

[Warner Losh <[e-mail]>]

On Dec 2, 2013, at 8:24 AM, Danny Mayer wrote:
>> Danny, Thanks for the kind introduction 
>> 
>> The reason for time_t is the dhcp-client can feed that directly into following call:
>> 	 settimeofday(const struct timeval *tp, const struct timezone *tzp)

During a leap second, the value of time_t is not well defined because by definition leap seconds don't happen in time_t/POSIX time scale (don't happen -- well don't consume space in the time_t timescale is more pedantically correct). Obscure point likely worth noting...  But using a NTP time stamp doesn't save you, since during a leap second its value is well defined, but the same as another second (ntp distinguishes in bits set in other parts of the header). Assuming the tolerance for this application is >> 1s, this won't matter, but might be worth specifying that during a leap second, the value returned shall be either the value of the prior second or the value of the next second to make it conform to most current usage.

Warner