[LEAPSECS] Leap second smearing test results

[Martin Burnicki]

Warner Losh wrote:
> I'd be curious what a longer smear time would do? Longer smears would
> give a smaller frequency error, which might be easier to digest. It
> also copes better with long-polling intervals in clients at the
> expense of a longer phase error in the clients.

I'd expect that the shape matters less if the smear interval is
sufficiently longer than the poll interval(s), simply because the time
offset changes from one poll to the next are smaller, as could be seen
in the initial tests with the fixed poll intervals.

> I'd have to say that any hope of recovering actual UTC on the clients
> that are smearing is likely in vain. Too many steering loops involved
> to get a good, stable, reliable, predictable answer at any given
> moment, even if you on the average get decent behavior. If you need
> UTC, you must count in UTC and lie to the clients on your machine
> directly if you are smearing for their sake.

Agreed. But as I've said earlier, the current way of smearing is just a
hack to work around other potential problems.

Martin