topic Re: 2011 Russian DST change in Operating System - HP-UX

2011 Russian DST change

rywong — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:49:14 GMT

Hi,

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

Ren

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Steven E. Protter — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:32:05 GMT

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

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

James R. Ferguson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:47:52 GMT

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...

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:14:37 GMT

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?

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Bill Hassell — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:42:38 GMT

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.

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:49:34 GMT

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...

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Steven E. Protter — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:17:23 GMT

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

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:28:45 GMT

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?

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:01:41 GMT

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

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Bill Hassell — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:42:29 GMT

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.

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:41:11 GMT

>Leave it alone and simply create the TZ variable

The trouble with a naked TZ variable as described in environ(5), without tztab(4) to back it up, it only works for this year. It won't tell you the correct time last year nor possibly in the future

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Alexander Selektor — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:02:57 GMT

Is there any news about the patch of the Russian time zones for HP-UX? Change zonetab the only solution right now?

Please check me.

It was: Moscow Time - UTC +3 with daylight saving time ( UTC+4).

It became: Moscow Time - UTC +4 without daylight saving time

We have in tztab:

# Western Russia (Moscow) Time, Western Russia (Moscow) Daylight Savings
# Time
WST-3WSTDST
0 3 25-31 3  1983-2038 0   WSTDST-4
0 2 24-30 9  1983-1995 0   WST-3
0 2 25-31 10 1996-2038 0   WST-3

Changed for:

# Western Russia (Moscow) Time, Western Russia (Moscow) Daylight Savings
# Time
WST-3WSTDST
0 3 25-31 3  1983-2011 0   WSTDST-4
0 2 24-30 9  1983-1995 0   WST-3
0 2 25-31 10 1996-2010 0   WST-3
0 2 25-31 10 2011-2038 0   WST-4

Is it correct?

Thank you!

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:26:29 GMT

>Is there any news about the patch of the Russian time zones for HP-UX? Change tztab the only solution right now?

Has someone made an official request for a HP-UX patch? Last time I checked, there wasn't one. I'll ask again.

>Is it correct?

Almost, using Clay's dst.pl I get:

$ TZ=WST-3WSTDST dst.pl -y 2011

Sun Mar 27 01:59:59 WST 2011 --> Sun Mar 27 03:00:00 WSTDST 2011

Sun Oct 30 01:59:59 WSTDST 2011 --> Sun Oct 30 02:00:00 WST 2011 # no shift

$ TZ=WST-3WSTDST dst.pl -y 2012

# Return exit status 2

Note: For the year 2012, you must use the timezone WST-4 and not WST-3WSTDST. Otherwise my program indicates some hour shifts:

$ TZ=WST-3WSTDST a.out

Tue Feb 01 00:00:00 2011 WST

Wed Jun 01 01:00:00 2011 WSTDST

Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 2011 WST

Wed Feb 01 01:00:00 2012 WST # extra shift

Fri Jun 01 01:00:00 2012 WST # extra shift

Sat Dec 01 01:00:00 2012 WST # extra shift

$ TZ=WST-4 a.out

Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 2012 WST

Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 2012 WST

Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 2012 WST

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Alexander Selektor — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:52:06 GMT

Dennis,

What is it a "Clay's dst.pl"? How it's work?

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:14:22 GMT

>What is a "Clay's dst.pl"? How it's work?

Clay is the #2 guy on the EBC forum. dst.pl is a perl script that searches for DST transitions.

A forum search for dst.pl should find it or a bunch of dead links that you also need to search. ;-)

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/tag/dst.pl/tg-p/category-id/itrc-117

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:25:53 GMT

>Last time I checked, there wasn't one. I'll ask again.

Ok, good news. They are working on an unofficial patch, perhaps released next week.

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

mist98 — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 21:16:40 GMT

Hello, guys! I already have an unofficial tztab patches for hp-ux. Who needs can take it here:

[broken link removed on 03-22-2017 by Admin]

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Alexander Selektor — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:33:14 GMT

This patch changes the tztab (almost same what I suggested above):

# Western Russia (Moscow) Time, Western Russia (Moscow) Daylight Savings
# Time
WST-3WSTDST
0 3 25-31 3  1983-2011 0   WSTDST-4
0 2 24-30 9  1983-1995 0   WST-3
0 2 25-31 10 1996-2010 0   WST-3
0 2 25-31 10 2011      0   WST-4

You think it is right?

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:32:51 GMT

>You think it is right?

I would have to test it out but I think you still have to use WST-4 for future years.

And you will not be able to use one TZ value to get past and future times accurately.

Re: 2011 Russian DST change

Dennis Handly — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 21:17:21 GMT

I tested out the tztab(4) entry. It seems it works fine for 2011 and also for future years!

BTW, I just learned that the Olson database is shutdown because of a lawsuit:

[broken link removed on 03-22-2017 by Admin]