Logged onto a live, but largely unused server this morning to discover puppet running at constant 20% CPU usage. Since no changes had be pushed out by puppet for months I was surprised to see it. Looking at the CPU graphs for the server, the load increase clearly started on the 1 July – the day a leap second was added this year.

screenshot

Clear jump in CPU load when the leap second was added.

A few minutes of research suggested the fix for puppet would be the same as for other effected systems (seems java had a horrible time too):

~$ date -s "$(date)"

Interesting little thing to run into first thing on a Monday morning.