/etc/localtime

[Wilfred Chau_1]

Does anyone know how the localtime file is used?

I know when the system reboots, this file will be read to adjust the HW clock. But what if the system is up and running?

We have a box which a DST patch was installed but the localtime file was not updated. I am afraid the system clock will move forward next Sunday.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Wilfred:

The manpages for 'hwclock' in the section titled "Clocks in a Linux System" nicely explain this.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Ivan Ferreira]

The /etc/localtime file is a copy of the timezone file located in /usr/share/zoneinfo. When you modify the timezone to update the DST changes, the /usr/share/zoneinfo/ is updated and you should copy the file to /etc/localtime.

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/ /etc/localtime

You can check DST rules with zdump -v

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

A possible solution to this would be to connect your system to an ntp time source. There probably is one on you network you can configure in ntp.conf

If you installed the DST patch and the system clock already moved forward its not going to do it again.

SEP

[Wilfred Chau_1]

thanks all.

What is the different between these 2 commands?


zdump -v US/Pacific

zdump -v /etc/localtime

[Ivan Ferreira]

The first command will open the zone file in /usr/share/zoneinfo, the second command will open /etc/localtime, if the files are equal as it should, you should get no differences in the rules.

[Wilfred Chau_1]

thank you all