[CentOS] using true UTC timezone everywhere

Florin Andrei

florin at andrei.myip.org
Thu Mar 8 20:04:03 UTC 2007


One problem with the daylight savings is that they mess with reporting 
tools that use timestamps. I guess an application could be configured to 
log UTC instead of local time, but that's not always doable.
Also, if you have servers in several different timezones, it's better if 
all systems follow the same clock.

So, I'm thinking it's perhaps better if I just use ZONE="UTC" on all 
systems. These are the steps I can think of so far:

- make sure the BIOS clock is set to UTC
- run timeconfig and make sure "System Clock uses UTC" is checked
- cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /etc/localtime
- edit /etc/sysconfig/clock and set ZONE="UTC"
- reboot

Voila - instant UTC clock. Never need to worry about daylight savings again.

Anybody can think of any problems with:
- the procedure I described?
- the simple fact of using the "true" UTC timezone?

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/



More information about the CentOS mailing list