
Hetzner mail to customers: 1 megawatt more power due to leap second - Uchikoma
(Was Google translate, now from the comment of imaginator below, thanks)<p>Better translation of their message to English speaking customers:<p>During the night of 30.06.2012 to 01.07.2012 our internal monitoring systems registered an increase in the level of IT power usage by approximately one megawatt.<p>The reason for this huge surge is the additional switched leap second which can lead to permanent CPU load on Linux servers.<p>According to heise.de, various Linux distributions are affected by this. Further information can be found at: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Leap-second-Linux-can...<p>In order to reduce CPU load to a normal level again, a restart of the whole system is necessary in many cases. First, a soft reboot via the command line should be attempted. Failing that, you have the option of performing a hardware reset via the Robot administration interface. For this, select menu item "Server" and the "Reset" tab for the respective server in the administration interface.
Please do not hesitate to contact us, should you have any queries.<p>Kind regards,<p>Hetzner Online AG
Stuttgarter Str. 1
91710 Gunzenhausen / Germany
info@hetzner.de
http://www.hetzner.com
======
imaginator
Better translation of their message to English speaking customers:

During the night of 30.06.2012 to 01.07.2012 our internal monitoring systems
registered an increase in the level of IT power usage by approximately one
megawatt.

The reason for this huge surge is the additional switched leap second which
can lead to permanent CPU load on Linux servers.

According to heise.de, various Linux distributions are affected by this.
Further information can be found at:
[http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Leap-second-Linux-
can...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Leap-second-Linux-can-
freeze-1629805.html)

In order to reduce CPU load to a normal level again, a restart of the whole
system is necessary in many cases. First, a soft reboot via the command line
should be attempted. Failing that, you have the option of performing a
hardware reset via the Robot administration interface. For this, select menu
item "Server" and the "Reset" tab for the respective server in the
administration interface.

Please do not hesitate to contact us, should you have any queries.

Kind regards,

Hetzner Online AG Stuttgarter Str. 1 91710 Gunzenhausen / Germany
info@hetzner.de <http://www.hetzner.com>

~~~
imaginator
just remember:

date -s "`date`" solves it.

No reboot, no stopping and starting NTPd.

~~~
hendi_
date -s "$(LC_ALL=C date)"

is the better option which also works on system with a locale != C

------
StavrosK
No need for Google translate:

During the night of 30.06.2012 to 01.07.2012 our internal monitoring systems
registered an increase in the level of IT power usage by approximately one
megawatt.

The reason for this huge surge is the additional switched leap second which
can lead to permanent CPU load on Linux servers.

According to heise.de, various Linux distributions are affected by this.
Further information can be found at:
[http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Leap-second-Linux-
can...](http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Leap-second-Linux-can-
freeze-1629805.html)

Please do not hesitate to contact us, should you have any queries.

------
metabrew
Here's the requisite graph <http://i.imgur.com/hsUDE.png>

~~~
cellularmitosis
/standard rant about the Y-axis not being anchored at zero, which will cause
most people to be mislead.

UPDATE: here's an illustration. compare this: <http://i.imgur.com/f3m25.png>
to this: <http://i.imgur.com/6z2cS.png> (those two graphs represent the same
data)

~~~
Dylan16807
Really? Who is both going to understand leap seconds, and also look at that
graph and think power consumption went up tenfold.

I'd much rather see the detail that zoom gives.

------
ck2
If the leap-second does all this, just imagine the 32-bit rollover issue in
2038

~~~
forgotusername
I'm imagining a whole bunch of bricked "classic" cars

~~~
daeken
I really can't imagine why that would ever happen. What car would ever use a
clock for anything essential, instead of a timer? Maybe I'm overestimating the
intelligence of car developers, but it seems like the obvious, simple
solution.

~~~
forgotusername
Engine won't start, service due 300 years ago. I'd be willing to bet $10
there's at least a few floating around with real time clocks, no idea what
they'd be used for though. If nothing else there's always in-car navigation
and entertainment which are definitely candidates, although I suppose less
likely to result in a brick.

~~~
mattdeboard
Sorry, what?

~~~
forgotusername
I'm engaging in what is commonly known as _using one's imagination_ to make
educated guesses at the possible electronic devices within an average motor
vehicle (you know, that thing with wheels on it) where a real time clock
susceptible to wraparound or overflow might be found, thus resulting in
potential malfunction, or in plainer words, _"the car won't start, the tuner
won't play music, the GPS won't get a signal, this thing is about as useful as
a brick"_.

~~~
mattdeboard
I see. I have to apologize, it totally went over my head you were talking
about cars considered classic in 2038, not the current day. Whoosh.

------
etaty
OVH <https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/220142781895671810>

------
efutch
Perhaps nitpicking, but this is because of a bug in the leap second
implementation, not in the leap second per se.

~~~
Uchikoma
I'd guess it happens by the concurrence of a lep second and a leap second
implementation bug. The bug without leap seconds would also not lead to
problems.

------
imaginator
Nice graph from Hetzner showing the spike:

<http://imgur.com/a/ykoup>

------
kodisha
Huh? I received my mail in English :)

