Re: [gentoo-server] UTC vs. localtime

[Ron Bickers]

On Tue August 9 2005 12:58 pm, Robert Larson wrote:

> I just recently switched a few of my servers of to UTC from localtime due
> to an new application deployment relying on UTC time.

Your new application should be able to work the way you had it before.  If it 
requires your local timezone to be UTC, it was poorly designed; complain to 
the developers.

> This is what I changed:
> /etc/conf.d/clock: CLOCK="UTC"
> /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC

This says your hardware clock is set to the UTC time, and your local timezone 
is also UTC.  That's why you're not getting the right local time.

> It was:
> /etc/conf.d/clock: CLOCK="local"
> /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/<my timezone>

This is the correct way to configure the clock if your hardware clock is set 
to the local time.

> I have another machine that does reflect the proper time, and it is set as
> follows:
> /etc/conf.d/clock: CLOCK="UTC"
> /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/<my timezone>

This is the correct way to configure the clock if your hardware clock is set 
to UTC time.  The correct adjustment will be made from the hardware clock 
when it needs the local time.

> Is it possible that I
> just need to set the clock?  If so, does that mean ntpclient and ntpd
> either haven't been doing their job, or their syncing to the wrong
> timezone?

If you set CLOCK="UTC", the hardware clock will get set to the same thing no 
matter what your /etc/localtime is.  However, you need to correctly set your 
timezone so you will get the correct local time.

You should check the man pages on this to be sure, but NTP will not adjust 
the clock by more than a certain amount at once, so you may need to set it 
manually with 'date' to something close to the current time.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Ron
-- 
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