DST tip: make sure /etc/localtime is also right

[Bill McGonigle]

Curious - I found that on an FC2 box while the timezone files had  
been updated last March (kicking the general preparedness out of  
everything else on the planet) the /etc/localtime file existed as an  
old copy of the timezone file.  Oops.  I'm pretty sure that wasn't  
done manually.

Back in the day /etc/localtime used to always be a symlink to a  
zonefile.  This seem[d,s] like a good idea - does anybody know why  
Fedora might have gotten away from that model?  I reinstated it and  
everything appears to be OK.

-Bill
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 >zdump -v EDT5EST | grep 2007
EDT5EST  Sun Mar 11 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 EDT  
isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000
EDT5EST  Sun Mar 11 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 EST  
isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
EDT5EST  Sun Nov  4 05:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:59:59 2007 EST  
isdst=1 gmtoff=-14400
EDT5EST  Sun Nov  4 06:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov  4 01:00:00 2007 EDT  
isdst=0 gmtoff=-18000

 >ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 837 Mar 21  2006 /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT

 >uptime
16:13:27 up 265 days,  7:47,  1 user,  load average: 0.66, 0.60, 0.48

 >ls -l /etc/localtime
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1267 Aug 31  2005 /etc/localtime

#mv /etc/localtime /etc/localtime-old; ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/ 
EST5EDT /etc/localtime

#date
Mon Mar 12 17:16:35 EDT 2007

#ntpdate us.pool.ntp.org
Looking for host us.pool.ntp.org and service ntp
host found : enigma.wiredgoats.com
12 Mar 16:17:40 ntpdate[6552]: step time server 208.201.242.2 offset  
-3549.652149 sec

(the time had been hand-corrected as an interim workaround)

-----
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