timezones: Daylight Savings

Daylight Savings for this year starts on Sunday October 3. Are your systems ready to handle the time change automatically?

To check any systems you may be interested in, the easiest way is using the zdump command

 # zdump -v $TZ | grep 2010

 Australia/NSW  Thu Sep 23 05:08:57 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 23 15:08:57 2010 EST isdst=0
 Australia/NSW  Sat Apr  3 15:59:59 2010 UTC = Sun Apr  4 02:59:59 2010 EST isdst=1
 Australia/NSW  Sat Apr  3 16:00:00 2010 UTC = Sun Apr  4 02:00:00 2010 EST isdst=0
 Australia/NSW  Sat Oct  2 15:59:59 2010 UTC = Sun Oct  3 01:59:59 2010 EST isdst=0
 Australia/NSW  Sat Oct  2 16:00:00 2010 UTC = Sun Oct  3 03:00:00 2010 EST isdst=1

The first line is just the current date/time and can be ignored. the remaining entries show the entries from the time zone database, which determine when any time changes for this year will occur. The above shows that the system clock will go forward by 1 hour at 2:00 on Sunday Oct 3, which is correct.