Re: [Ntp] Finding leap-seconds.list

[Harlan Stenn <[e-mail]>]

On 11/10/18 11:38 PM, Thomas Peterson wrote:
> Thank you Paul for the further clarity around the hosting - I was
> unaware that data.iana.org also hosted it simply because search engines
> don't appear to know about it, which is strange to me as the robots.txt
> on www.iana.org and data.iana.org do not prohibit spiders on the URLs in
> question.
> 
> Harlan: If yourselves and the IANA webmasters do not object, would it be
> possible to raise a bug with ntp to change the URL used by
> 'update-leap'? I would have done so myself however new accounts appear
> to require approval.

Sure, and only gmail accounts require approval - we get too much spam
otherwise and gmail has never shown a care that spammers do this.

I'll point out that the default URL for the leap seconds file is a
*default* and people can easily specify an override.

But yes, if there's a better source for this file we're happy to make
that change.

H
--
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> On 09/11/2018 21:12, Paul Eggert wrote:
>> On 11/8/18 8:40 PM, Thomas Peterson wrote:
>>> I was intending to keep the scope of this discussion solely on what
>>> is hosted under the ietf.org domain.
>>
>> Although the intent was that leap-seconds.list (as part of tzdb) be
>> distributed via iana.org URLs, it is also distributed under ietf.org
>> because  <https://data.iana.org/time-zones/> and
>> <https://www.ietf.org/timezones/> are clones.
>>
>> I don't know why the ietf.org URLs exist. I don't even recall knowing
>> about them until this discussion. However, it appers that access via
>> ietf.org is common. If I search Google for "leap-seconds.list" the
>> first hit is the ietf.org copy (the iana.org copy isn't even in the
>> top ten), and I sent ietf.org URLs to you in my previous email because
>> I Googled for files without noticing that the resulting URLs were
>> ietf.org and not iana.org.
>>
>> In looking for why people seem to prefer ietf.org URLs, I see that NTP
>> started using them for leap-seconds.list in NTP version 4.2.8p9
>> (2016-11-21) presumably because the nist.gov URLs were so flaky. My
>> guess is that the NTP developer in question didn't know that iana.org
>> was intended and ietf.org was (at least from the tzdb point of view)
>> accidental. I assume we can file a bug report with the NTP developers
>> to replace ietf.org URLs with iana.org URLs, though it will take some
>> time for any such change to trickle out to real-world use.
>>
>> If the intent is to decommission the ietf.org URLs, I think we're all
>> agreed that we should give NTP and other downstream users sufficient
>> advance notice of the switch. I also suggest redirecting
>> leap-seconds.list (and other tzdb-related) HTTPS requests from
>> ietf.org to iana.org after the decommission occurs.
>>
>> I will ask the iana.org webmasters why there are ietf.org clones of
>> the URLs in question. Quite possibly there's a good reason that I
>> don't know.
>>
>>
>>> There also does not appear to be links from the IANA time zone page
>>> you link nor from any of the downloads that contain specific
>>> reference to the second and third links in your email, so could you
>>> please clarify how those are announced? 
>>
>> Tzdb releases are announced on [e-mail] which is described
>> at <https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/tz-announce>. (I don't know
>> why the mailing list is archived is at icann.org and not iana.org; I
>> suppose that's another question I can ask the iana.org webmasters, if
>> there's interest.)
>>
>> The most recent tzdb release announcement is archived at
>> <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz-announce/2018-October/000052.html>.
>> Releases are distributed via HTTPS (also plain HTTP or FTP, but these
>> are deprecated). Each release announcement contains GPG checksums for
>> the release files, so the leap-seconds.list file in each distribution
>> can be checked by verifying these checksums.
>>
> 

-- 
Harlan Stenn <[e-mail]>
http://networktimefoundation.org - be a member!