This script will download the latest leap second file. Run it weekly from cron.

• This script runs on RHEL7, CentOS7 (using systemd).

  #!/bin/bash
  
  # This script will download the latest leap second file,
  # update the NTP configuration and restart ntpd.
  
  
  # Leap second file location
  leapremote="ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/"
  #leapremote="ftp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/pub/ntp/"
  
  # Local file name
  leaplocaldir="/var/lib/ntp/"
  leaplocalfile="$leaplocaldir/leap-seconds"
  
  # Log file
  logfile=/var/log/getleap.log
  
  # Get latest leap second file
  /usr/bin/lftp -e 'set net:timeout 10 ; cls -1 --perms --sort=date leap-seconds* > /tmp/leap ; exit' $leapremote
  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "`date` - ERROR - FTP problem, exiting." | tee -a $logfile
    exit 1
  else
    # find latest file, exclude symlinks, directories with same prefix
    latestleapfile=`egrep -v "^l|^d" /tmp/leap | cut -d " " -f3 | head -1`
    echo $latestleapfile > /tmp/leap
  fi
  
  if [ -f "$leaplocaldir$(cat /tmp/leap)" ]; then
    echo "`date` - OK - File $leaplocaldir$(cat /tmp/leap) already exists. Not downloading." | tee -a $logfile
  else
    cd "$leaplocaldir"
    /usr/bin/lftp -e "set net:timeout 10 ; get $(cat /tmp/leap) ; exit" $leapremote
    ln -sfn "$leaplocaldir$(cat /tmp/leap)" "$leaplocalfile"
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
      echo "`date` - OK - Leap second file downloaded." | tee -a $logfile
    else
      echo "`date` - ERROR - Leap second file download problem." | tee -a $logfile
      exit 1 
    fi
    systemctl restart ntpd
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
      echo "`date` - OK - NTPd service restarted succesfully." | tee -a $logfile
    else
      echo "`date` - ERROR - NTPd service restart problem!" | tee -a $logfile
      exit 1
    fi
  fi

• SELinux would not allow NTPd to read a link. You have to add a module to allow that:

  module ntpleap 1.0;
  
  require {
          type ntpd_t;
          type ntp_drift_t;
          class lnk_file read;
  }
  
  #============= ntpd_t ==============
  allow ntpd_t ntp_drift_t:lnk_file read;

• Find TAI line in the NTPd startup log /var/log/messages:

  Apr 20 13:51:14 ntp1 ntpd[19189]: 0.0.0.0 c01e 0e TAI 36 leap 201507010000 expire 201512280000

• Test with ntpq:

  ntpq -c rv | tr " " "\n" |egrep "leap|expire|tai"
  leap_none,
  leap_armed,
  leap=00,
  tai=35,
  leapsec=201507010000,
  expire=201512280000

• And when leap is announced (30-06-2015)

  $ ntpq -c rv | tr " " "\n" |egrep "leap|expire|tai"
  leap_add_sec,
  leap_armed,
  leap=01,
  tai=35,
  leapsec=201507010000,
  expire=201512280000

  • leap = warning indicator (0-3)

           LI       Value     Meaning
          -------------------------------------------------------
          00       0         no warning
          01       1         last minute has 61 seconds
          10       2         last minute has 59 seconds)
          11       3         alarm condition (clock not synchronized)

  • leapsec = NTP seconds when the next leap second is/was inserted
  • expire = NTP seconds when the NIST leapseconds file expires
  • tai = TAI-UTC offset (s)
• Test servers:

  $ ntpq -c "lassoc" -c "mrv &1 &999 leap,srcadr,stratum"
  
  ind assid status  conf reach auth condition  last_event cnt
  ===========================================================
    1 15289  941a   yes   yes  none candidate    sys_peer  1
    2 15290  961a   yes   yes  none  sys.peer    sys_peer  1
    3 15291  9324   yes   yes  none   outlyer   reachable  2
    4 15292  9417   yes   yes  none candidate rate_exceeded  1
  srcadr=ntp0.nl.uu.net, leap=00, stratum=1
  
  srcadr=ntp1.nl.uu.net, leap=00, stratum=1
  
  srcadr=ntp.ring.nlnog.net, leap=00, stratum=1
  
  srcadr=ntp2.polaire.nl, leap=01, stratum=1