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Re: 2011 Russian DST change

 
rywong
Occasional Contributor

2011 Russian DST change

Hi,

 

Does anyone know when the tzdata 2011h Russian DST change is available for HP-UX and HP-UX Java?

 

Ren

24 REPLIES 24
Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Shalom,

 

Usually this data is released a few months before the time change.

 

The schedule is sometimes delayed by the decisions of political institutions that decide such things.

 

The data on java is delivere separately and should be available on http://www.hp.com/go/java

 

SEP

Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
http://isnamerica.com
http://hpuxconsulting.com
Sponsor: http://hpux.ws
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hpuxlinux
Founder http://newdatacloud.com
James R. Ferguson
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Hi:

 

I have no idea "when" but for HP-UX, the "where" will be in the form of a patch to 'tztab' when it is updated.  Search the Patch database using the keyword 'tztab'.  At this writing there are no new patches.

 

Regards!

 

...JRF...

Dennis Handly
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

I haven't heard of this.  Was there any official government document stating this change?

How many years notice was there?

What exact time and date does it start/end?

Bill Hassell
Honored Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

As Steven mentions, tztab updates are subject to political decisions, unrelated to astronomy and aastrophysics. Hoewever, no need to wait for HP to develop a patch -- you can add any timezone rules that you want to tztab. The tztab file is a simple ASCII file with the date ranges for daylight saving changes and hours east/west of Zulu (UTC or Greenwich) time. SInce there are many Russian timezones, you'll need to find all the rules for all the timezones and update or add the rules as needed. The comments in tztab and the man page for tztab should help in setting up the new rules.



Bill Hassell, sysadmin
James R. Ferguson
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Hi (again):

 

As Bill noted, it is a simple matter to create or amend an entry in 'tztab'.  Be advised, though, that if you do this, the *next* patch that delivers an "official" version of the 'tztab' file will *not* be automatically applied.  Rather, it will remain in the '/usr/newconfig' directory.  This is by design, to prevent overwriting your local version.

 

Regards!

 

...JRF...

Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Shalom again,

Yes, many are surprised that TZ data is impacted by political decisions. If you are managing a system in Russia and want it running on Russian TZ, you will need someone to keep track. This process varies country to country. In Israel there is an annual debate on this matter sometimes involving shouting and pushing in the Knesset.

For all I know Russia could have set this into law a long time ago and there would not be any issues.

Unless you are in a jam, I'd recommend not touching tztab and having the next patch fail to update the file.

In many environments simply staying current and patching twice a year keeps you in good standing.

SEP
Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
http://isnamerica.com
http://hpuxconsulting.com
Sponsor: http://hpux.ws
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hpuxlinux
Founder http://newdatacloud.com
Dennis Handly
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

I asked around.  No answers about tztab patches yet.

Java will be sending out a timezone patch in the next few weeks.  I don't know if it has your specific DST changes?

Dennis Handly
Acclaimed Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

There is no official tztab patch for Russia in the works.

Bill Hassell
Honored Contributor

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

And it isn't necessary to use tztab at all. Leave it alone and simply create the TZ variable you need in /etc/TIMEZONE. The details are in man environ which will tell you how to create any timezone behavior you want (and any name you might want to use). For instance, I have decided to create a timezone for my desk at work. I have decided that it should be 5 hours, 37 minutes and 12 seconds west of Zulu time (or Prime Meridian as the man page states). I also (arbitrarily) decided that daylight saving starts on the 64th day of the year (zero based) and goes back to standard time on day 290. To test it, I set TZ tempoarily like this:

 

#  TZ=BILL+5:37:12BILLD+6:12:43,64,290   date

Thu Jul 21 18:02:07 BILLD 2011

#  date
Thu Jul 21 20:14:51 EDT 2011

 

Now my local time is Eastern Daylight Saving (EDT), but when I override TZ, then date (and all other time related comands like ls -l) will show my special (but very impractical) timezone. Left to right, the components are:

 

BILL = standard time name (3 or more characters)

+5:37:12 = offset (west) of Zulu time 5 hours 37 minutes and 12 seconds

BILLD =daylight saving time name (any 3 or more characters)

+6:12:43 = offset during daylight saving period

64,290 = start daylight saving on day 64, standard time on day 290

 

So you determine the rules for your timezone, then edit /etc/TIMEZONE and change it to your local timezone:

 

TZ=BILL+5:37:12BILLD+6:12:43,64,290

export TZ

 

But wait, there's more! If your system accomodates users from different timezones, you can add the desired TZ variable to the user's .profile so every user can see time represented in their local timezone. Remember that all time in HP-UX is kept as Zulu or UTC. The TZ variable is used to translate time to the local representation.



Bill Hassell, sysadmin