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The international change is not tied to one Linux release or one date. The 2022 General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) Resolution 4 says the maximum permitted value of UT1−UTC will be increased “in, or before, 2035.” Operating systems, time-zone databases, chrony versions, reference clocks and vendors can therefore change on different schedules.
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What is changing, and what is not
UTC currently allows an occasional leap-second insertion to keep UTC close to Earth-rotation time (UT1). The CGPM decision sets a policy direction toward a more continuous UTC realization by increasing the maximum allowed UT1−UTC difference. It does not specify a single cutover day on which every NTP server stops announcing leap seconds.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThat distinction matters for administrators. A host may continue to run a chrony build and time-zone package designed for leap announcements even after your upstream sources have adopted a continuous policy. Conversely, a reference clock or appliance may retain leap-second behavior for years. Treat the transition as a source-policy and dependency audit, not as a one-line upgrade.
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What “no more leap seconds” means for NTP
NTP implementations commonly represent time on a POSIX-oriented scale that does not create a separate timestamp for an inserted leap second. During a traditional insertion, the protocol’s leap indicator and the server’s handling mode tell clients how to approach the boundary. A leap-smear service instead changes its clock rate over an interval so that clients never see a single abrupt step, but the served scale is intentionally offset from UTC while the smear is in progress.
Neither behavior is automatically “more correct” for every system. The requirement is consistency: all members of a synchronization domain must use the same time policy, and applications must know which policy they receive.
Identify your synchronization role before editing chrony
Start by deciding what the machine does. The same directive can be appropriate for a reference-clock server and wrong for an ordinary client.
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|---|---|---|
| Ordinary client | Does it consume NTP from another service? | Use reliable, mutually consistent UTC/NTP sources; remove unnecessary leap directives. |
| Normal NTP server | Does it redistribute an unsmeared time scale? | Track a consistent upstream UTC/NTP source and avoid accidentally smearing downstream clients. |
| Leap-aware reference-clock server | Does the attached clock omit or delay leap announcements? | Retain only the leap-history or TAI–UTC configuration required by that clock and the installed chrony version. |
| Leap-smearing server | Is the entire synchronization domain deliberately smeared? | Use one documented smear profile and serve it only to clients that are configured for the same profile. |
Do not infer a role from a host name. A virtual machine can be a client, while a stratum-2 machine can serve both ordinary and smeared consumers if the design explicitly separates them. Inventory upstream addresses, downstream clients, reference clocks, cloud or provider time services, and any local time distribution appliances.
Audit the current configuration safely
- Collect every configuration source. Read the main
chrony.conf, include or drop-in directories, distribution defaults, container images, and configuration-management templates. Search forleapsectz,leapsecmode,smoothtime,maxslewrate,leaponly, and comments describing a provider-specific smear. - Record the installed versions. Capture the chronyd and chronyc versions, the operating-system release, and the time-zone database package version. Directive behavior and service-unit names are distribution-specific.
- Map source policy. For every
server,pool, or hardware reference, document whether the source is ordinary UTC/NTP, leap-smearing, or tied to a reference clock that supplies leap information separately. - Find consumers. List downstream NTP clients, appliances, databases, message queues, monitoring systems, log pipelines, and scheduled jobs. Mark any component that parses
23:59:60, reads NTP leap indicators, or applies a hard-coded TAI–UTC offset. - Save a rollback copy. Preserve the effective configuration and current chronyc output before changing it. A rollback is useful if a vendor package later adds a leap-related default that you did not expect.
Configuration for ordinary chrony clients
An ordinary client normally needs source-policy cleanup rather than a new directive. Point it at reliable NTP sources that all implement the same UTC policy. If your sources are unsmeared, do not add a smear merely because leap seconds are being phased out.
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Review leapsectz right/UTC
leapsectz right/UTC tells chrony to obtain leap announcements and TAI–UTC information from the leap-aware “right” time-zone database. It is useful when a reference clock does not announce a leap, announces it too late, or when the system must maintain an accurate TAI–UTC offset from the time-zone data.
It is not a general requirement for a future continuous-UTC client. Remove it when your installed chrony version, distribution guidance, and reference-clock design no longer need leap-history or TAI–UTC data. Do not remove it blindly from a system whose hardware clock or downstream interface still depends on that information. Clients of leap-smearing servers must not use this directive, because the smear policy and a leap-aware TAI–UTC table describe different time scales.
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Review leapsecmode
leapsecmode controls chrony’s response to an announced leap. Its documented modes are:
system: use the operating system’s normal leap handling.step: step the clock at the leap event.slew: apply the correction by changing the clock rate.ignore: do not apply the announced leap.
Choose a mode because of a deliberate operational policy, not because the directive appears in an old template. In a domain that no longer receives leap insertions, the setting may never be exercised, but leaving an obsolete value can confuse future operators or interact badly with a source that still advertises leap events. Document why a non-default mode remains.
Reload and verify
Use the service-management mechanism supported by your distribution to reload chronyd; service names and whether a reload or restart is required vary by package. Then run the chronyc inspection commands provided by the installed version, commonly:
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chronyc tracking
chronyc sources -v
chronyc sourcestats -v
chronyc activityConfirm that the selected source is the intended policy, that reachability and offsets are stable, and that no unexpected source has been selected. Compare output before and after the change. Do not assume a successful daemon reload proves that every downstream client received the same time scale.
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Configuration for a normal, unsmeared NTP server
A normal NTP server should obtain time from mutually consistent UTC/NTP sources and pass that policy to its clients. Remove a local smoothtime configuration unless the server is intentionally the root of a smear domain. A server that accidentally smooths while its peers remain unsmeared creates two disagreeing clocks for clients to choose between.
Keep any leapsectz setting only when the reference-clock design requires it. If upstream servers provide trustworthy leap information and the installed chrony design no longer uses a leap table, simplify the configuration after checking the package documentation. Test the result with a controlled set of clients before changing a widely used NTP service.
When a leap-smearing design is appropriate
Leap smearing is a coordinated service policy, not a compatibility switch for ordinary clients. Chrony’s documented example is:
leapsecmode slew
maxslewrate 1000
smoothtime 400 0.001024 leaponlyIn that example, the smear begins at 00:00:00 UTC and completes after 62,500 seconds (about 17.36 hours). The maximum frequency offset reaches 32 parts per million after 31,250 seconds. Those figures describe this chrony example; they are not a universal smear duration or an industry-wide standard.
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The chrony documentation warns that a smoothed server is intentionally not serving its best estimate of true time during the smear. That is the trade-off: applications avoid an abrupt leap boundary, but timestamps temporarily differ from unsmeared UTC by a policy-defined amount.
Conditions for using a smear
- Every server in the synchronization group uses the same smear algorithm, start condition, duration, and direction.
- Clients select only those servers during the smear interval; they cannot fail over to an unsmeared public pool without a deliberate conversion plan.
- Logs, metrics, databases, and security controls document that the domain’s time is smeared.
- The organization accepts the loss of direct UTC traceability during the interval and has a way to relate smeared timestamps to its reference time.
RFC 8633 says leap smearing must not be used for public-facing NTP servers because a smeared server disagrees with non-smearing servers and with UTC during the smear interval. Keep a smear service private to the coordinated domain for which it was designed.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Can smeared and unsmeared NTP sources be mixed?
Not safely in one ordinary source pool. A client that can select either type may jump between time scales, reject a source for excessive offset, or produce timestamps that cannot be compared consistently across hosts. The problem is greatest during the smear window, when the smeared clock is intentionally moving at a different rate.
| Decision axis | Ordinary UTC/NTP | Coordinated leap smear |
|---|---|---|
| Source compatibility | Use sources that implement the same unsmeared policy. | Use only servers with the identical smear profile. |
| Served time during a window | Tracks the selected UTC/NTP realization; an announced leap may be handled by the configured mode. | Intentionally departs from UTC while the correction is spread over the smear interval. |
| Legacy applications | May encounter leap indicators or assumptions about a leap boundary. | Avoids an abrupt boundary but can expose a non-UTC rate and offset. |
| Coordination required | Source consistency and normal failover planning. | Exact coordination of servers, clients, failover, monitoring, and documentation. |
| Traceability | Directly relate timestamps to the organization’s UTC/NTP reference. | Requires a documented conversion or accounting for the smear offset. |
If you must connect two domains, use an explicit boundary service or protocol translation designed for the two policies. Do not place both source types in the same undifferentiated pool list and hope chrony will infer the difference.
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Changing NTP sources does not repair software that has encoded assumptions about leap seconds. Search source code, schemas, parsers, test fixtures, and operational runbooks for:
- The literal time label
23:59:60or validators that reject it without a documented policy. - Logic driven by NTP leap-indicator bits.
- Hard-coded TAI–UTC offsets or a copied leap-second table.
- Duration calculations that assume every UTC day has exactly 86,400 seconds.
- Schedulers, certificate checks, databases, and monitoring alerts that compare timestamps from different smear domains.
- Serialization formats that silently discard leap information or reinterpret an out-of-range second.
For each dependency, decide whether it should follow UTC, a monotonic clock, or an intentionally smeared service. Use a monotonic clock for elapsed-time measurements and deadlines; use a documented wall-clock source for event timestamps. Test boundary behavior with the software’s supported clock-injection or replay facilities rather than changing production time.
Operational migration checklist
- Obtain the current policy from each upstream provider or reference-clock vendor. Do not infer it from the server’s geographic location.
- Classify every host and service as ordinary UTC/NTP, leap-aware, or smear-domain infrastructure.
- Remove obsolete
leapsectz,leapsecmode, andsmoothtimelines only after confirming why they were added. - Keep smear directives together and document the exact profile, including the 1,000-ppm limit, 0.001024-ppm/s parameter, 62,500-second example duration, and 32-ppm peak described by chrony when that example is used.
- Reload through the installed distribution’s supported service mechanism and capture
chronyc tracking,sources -v, andsourcestats -voutput. - Verify failover. A smeared client must not silently select an unsmeared fallback, and an ordinary client must not select a smear source.
- Check databases, appliances, monitoring, logs, schedulers, and security systems for leap-second and TAI–UTC assumptions.
- Update diagrams, runbooks, incident procedures, and configuration-management comments so the next administrator knows the intended time scale.
- Recheck the policy when chrony, the operating system, the time-zone database, or a reference-clock firmware package is upgraded.
Common failure modes and fixes
A client still has leapsectz right/UTC
That is not automatically an error. Determine whether the host still needs a leap-aware table or TAI–UTC offset. Remove it only when the installed version and reference-clock design no longer require it, and never leave it on a client consuming a smear service.
Sources show unstable selection after a change
Look for a mixed source pool, an accidental smear source, unreachable servers, or a source whose policy was not documented. Separate domains and verify each source with the local chronyc reports before changing polling or stratum settings.
Applications reject a timestamp at a boundary
Find the parser or schema assumption about 23:59:60, leap indicators, or 86,400-second days. Define whether the application stores UTC labels, elapsed durations, or a provider-specific smear time, then test that behavior independently of chronyd.
Operators want to set leapsecmode ignore everywhere
That would hide an announced leap rather than establish a future continuous-UTC policy. Use ignore only when it is part of a documented source and application design; otherwise it can create an unexplained offset from other UTC-aware systems.
What to plan for through 2035
The 2035 target is a policy horizon, not a guaranteed date for one command or package release. Maintain a change register for operating-system updates, chrony documentation, time-zone database releases, reference-clock firmware, provider announcements, and standards guidance. Revisit the configuration when one of those components changes.
The durable rule is simple: select one time scale for each synchronization domain, make the source policy explicit, and test software at the boundaries. Ordinary clients generally need cleanup and verification. Smear domains need strict coordination. Neither requires inventing a new chrony directive merely because the international policy is moving away from inserted leap seconds.
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