Why don't I see some kind of "time change" message in my syslog.log?

[Stuart Abramson_2]

We just did the time change from EST to EDT last April 4 (8 days ago).

I don't see any message to the effect that HP-UX changed the system clock forward 1 hour.

I can tell from syslog messages, that there are no messages between 01:5X and 03:0Y, on several servers. I was expecting an explicit message to the effect that he changed the time forward 1 hour.

You'd think that the time change was a major event worth logging.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

You must think that HP-UX is an advanced operating system like Windows. In fact, your time has not changed at all. All UNIX boxes simply count seconds since Jan. 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC. The only thing that has changed is how the time is displayed as governed by TZ. Moreover, you could be running multiple TZ settings for users all over the planet so how would time messages meaningfully account for that?

Besides, one of the fundamental principles of UNIX programming and philosophy is that "Thou shalt display no messages that say all is well" --- or something close to that.