Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Matthias Andree matthias.and...@gmx.de wrote: If they're in the same physical FS there's no need for a symlink. You might as well use a hardlink. And then discuss how all the time zone configuration tools deal with /etc/localtime - truncate/overwrite, direct overwrite ... In that case neither a symlink nor a hardlink is safe, regardless of whether /etc and /usr/share/timezone are in the same FS. Either truncate/overwrite or direct overwrite will trash the target of a symlink just as they would the file identified by a hardlink. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Matthias Andree matthias.and...@gmx.de wrote: Am 28.03.2011 19:57, schrieb dieter...@engineer.com: I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. In that case, /etc and /usr/share/timezone (or whatever) need to be in the same physical file system ... If they're in the same physical FS there's no need for a symlink. You might as well use a hardlink. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Am 29.03.2011 09:53, schrieb per...@pluto.rain.com: Matthias Andree matthias.and...@gmx.de wrote: Am 28.03.2011 19:57, schrieb dieter...@engineer.com: I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. In that case, /etc and /usr/share/timezone (or whatever) need to be in the same physical file system ... If they're in the same physical FS there's no need for a symlink. You might as well use a hardlink. And then discuss how all the time zone configuration tools deal with /etc/localtime - truncate/overwrite, direct overwrite, rename-a-replacement-file and all that. No. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 09:38:29PM -0400, Ed Maste wrote: On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 03:27:32PM -0700, David Wolfskill wrote: There are other ways to do it, of course -- e.g., the first time the utility is run, it could actually ask, but then cache the information in some place so it could look there first (and if it finds a cached answer, avoid asking again unless it's told to ignore the cache -- as might be reasonable if the machine is moved to a different time zone. That's what tzsetup does in HEAD - the name of the selected timezone file is stored in /var/db/zoneinfo, and tzsetup -r can be used to copy in an updated file: -r Reinstall the zoneinfo file installed last time. The name is obtained from /var/db/zoneinfo. It looks like this hasn't been MFC'd, although I'm not sure why. The change came in from svn rev 198267 by edwin (CC'd). Thanks for pointing that out -- I had failed to consider that the behavior might have changed in head. It does seem to me that an MFC would be useful and harmless, based only on the above information. Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill da...@catwhisker.org Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key. pgpTOjYNMzeLM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 10:57 AM, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. +1. Many Linux distros do the same thing as well (Gentoo is just one example). Thanks, -Garrett ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Sent from my iPad On Mar 28, 2011, at 10:57 AM, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The one (and only) problem that I've seen from using a symlink for /etc/localtime is that -- since the /usr partition is not mounted early-on -- boot messages get logged in GMT offset until /usr is mounted. However, some simply ignore this. -- Devin ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Garrett Cooper gcoo...@freebsd.org wrote: On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 10:57 AM, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. +1. Many Linux distros do the same thing as well (Gentoo is just one example). Thanks, -Garrett Same here, though I'd be happy to change this habit if mergemaster handled the updates for me. If you do end up using /var/db/zoneinfo in mergemaster, keep two things in mind: 1. /var/db/zoneinfo may not exist because tzsetup was never used (/etc/localtime may or may not exist). 2. /etc/localtime may be a symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/... In the first case, you would need to ask the user which zoneinfo file to use, or just run tzsetup for them. In the second case, you should confirm that the user wants to replace the symlink with a copy. In both cases, verify that /var/db/zoneinfo reflects current configuration (create it, if necessary). - Max ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
2011/3/28 dieter...@engineer.com: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The symlink's target is in /usr (/usr/share/zoneinfo/), which is separated in the default partition layout. But both /etc/rc.d/adjkerntz and /usr/src/UPDATING require mounting filesystems before calling adjkerntz, so it should be ok. -- Olivier Smedts _ ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) e-mail: oliv...@gid0.org - against HTML email vCards X www: http://www.gid0.org - against proprietary attachments / \ Il y a seulement 10 sortes de gens dans le monde : ceux qui comprennent le binaire, et ceux qui ne le comprennent pas. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 11:10:42AM -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote: On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 10:57 AM, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. +1. Many Linux distros do the same thing as well (Gentoo is just one example). RedHat is a counter-example. Parts of the kernel are not timezone aware, and seem to be hard-coded to use whatever TZ the hardware clock is in. The symptom I was running into was that the kernel's timestamps were waffling back-and-forth during the boot process. I was making use of a symlink, but the timezone data was on a different partition from the root parition. RedHat's support officially said don't use a symlink, as any process started before the 'real' TZ files were available would reckon time differently when printing timestamps. Lots of people got bit by this: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=91228 YMMV. Thanks, -Garrett ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- Brian Reichert reich...@numachi.com BSD admin/developer at large ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 02:22:01PM -0400, Maxim Khitrov thus spake: Same here, though I'd be happy to change this habit if mergemaster handled the updates for me. This would be a good solution for source updates, but how would this work for binary upgrades via freebsd-update, as mergemaster is not used for this operation. -jgh -- Jason Helfman System Administrator experts-exchange.com http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_4830110.html E4AD 7CF1 1396 27F6 79DD 4342 5E92 AD66 8C8C FBA5 ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 11:48 -0700, Jason Helfman wrote: On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 02:22:01PM -0400, Maxim Khitrov thus spake: Same here, though I'd be happy to change this habit if mergemaster handled the updates for me. This would be a good solution for source updates, but how would this work for binary upgrades via freebsd-update, as mergemaster is not used for this operation. How we solved this back in 2006 when Congress altered the times that Daylight Saving is observed, we pushed out an internal package that: ( Before Installation ) 1a. If /etc/localtime is a symbolic link, proceed to installation (no update needed). 1b. If /etc/localtime is a binary file,... 2. Compare /etc/localtime against each locale in /usr/share/zoneinfo 3. If you find a match, remember which timezone matched ( After Installation ) 4. If /etc/localtime was binary and matched some locale in /usr/share/zoneinfo, copy updated zoneinfo to /etc/localtime (overwriting the current file). -- Devin -jgh ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Am 28.03.2011 19:57, schrieb dieter...@engineer.com: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. In that case, /etc and /usr/share/timezone (or whatever) need to be in the same physical file system. Adds interesting software effects for those file systems where a directory is a filesystem with its own dev and thereabouts, such as AFS. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The one (and only) problem that I've seen from using a symlink for /etc/localtime is that -- since the /usr partition is not mounted early-on -- boot messages get logged in GMT offset until /usr is mounted. However, some simply ignore this. What boot messages are these? grep 2011 /var/run/dmesg.boot Copyright (c) 1992-2011 The FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #9: Sun Mar 6 18:47:36 pst 2011 ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On 03/27/2011 18:38, Ed Maste wrote: That's what tzsetup does in HEAD - the name of the selected timezone file is stored in /var/db/zoneinfo, and tzsetup -r can be used to copy in an updated file: -r Reinstall the zoneinfo file installed last time. The name is obtained from /var/db/zoneinfo. It looks like this hasn't been MFC'd, although I'm not sure why. The change came in from svn rev 198267 by edwin (CC'd). Edwin, Any reason not to MFC this? Doug -- Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much. -- OK Go Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS. Yours for the right price. :) http://SupersetSolutions.com/ ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 16:52 -0400, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The one (and only) problem that I've seen from using a symlink for /etc/localtime is that -- since the /usr partition is not mounted early-on -- boot messages get logged in GMT offset until /usr is mounted. However, some simply ignore this. What boot messages are these? The messages generated during boot -- see /var/log/messages. grep 2011 /var/run/dmesg.boot Those aren't the boot messages I'm referring to (and by convention, I would call those the kernel boot messages as only the kernel messages are found there). Copyright (c) 1992-2011 The FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #9: Sun Mar 6 18:47:36 pst 2011 Huh? Please help me understand why you'd grep for 2011 in the context of this topic (timezone differences). Here's an impirical test: 1. Put your BIOS into GMT 2. Make /etc/localtime a symbolic link to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles 3. Reboot In our experience, the Regents of the University of California message is logged to /var/log/messages in GMT and subsequent messages (produced after /usr is mounted) are logged in the desired timezone. NOTE: This assumes that / and /usr are separate partitions. -- Devin ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
2011/3/29 Devin Teske dte...@vicor.com: On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 16:52 -0400, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The one (and only) problem that I've seen from using a symlink for /etc/localtime is that -- since the /usr partition is not mounted early-on -- boot messages get logged in GMT offset until /usr is mounted. However, some simply ignore this. What boot messages are these? The messages generated during boot -- see /var/log/messages. grep 2011 /var/run/dmesg.boot Those aren't the boot messages I'm referring to (and by convention, I would call those the kernel boot messages as only the kernel messages are found there). Copyright (c) 1992-2011 The FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #9: Sun Mar 6 18:47:36 pst 2011 Huh? Please help me understand why you'd grep for 2011 in the context of this topic (timezone differences). Here's an impirical test: 1. Put your BIOS into GMT 2. Make /etc/localtime a symbolic link to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles 3. Reboot In our experience, the Regents of the University of California message is logged to /var/log/messages in GMT and subsequent messages (produced after /usr is mounted) are logged in the desired timezone. NOTE: This assumes that / and /usr are separate partitions. Not for me (BIOS clock set to UTC) : % uname -a FreeBSD q.gid0.org 9.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT #0 r220114: Mon Mar 28 23:42:11 CEST 2011 r...@q.gid0.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/QUAD amd64 % date mar 29 mar 2011 00:41:41 CEST % uptime 0:41 up 30 mins, 3 users, load averages: 0,06 0,06 0,07 % ls -l /etc/localtime lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 32 29 jui 2008 /etc/localtime@ - /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris % mount tank/freebsd on / (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls) [...] tank/freebsd/usr on /usr (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls) [...] % grep -i regents /var/log/messages Mar 29 00:12:08 q kernel: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. % tail -n 1 /var/log/messages Mar 29 00:12:08 q kernel: kbd0 at ukbd0 I don't think this content is added to /var/log/messages during boot, because the kernel doesn't have access to the log file (and if /usr is not mounted, neither is /var). I thought the kernel messages were saved in memory (system message buffer), and only after boot (and filesystems mounted, and syslogd started) were they dumped to a file. -- Olivier Smedts _ ASCII ribbon campaign ( ) e-mail: oliv...@gid0.org - against HTML email vCards X www: http://www.gid0.org - against proprietary attachments / \ Il y a seulement 10 sortes de gens dans le monde : ceux qui comprennent le binaire, et ceux qui ne le comprennent pas. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Tue, 2011-03-29 at 00:51 +0200, Olivier Smedts wrote: 2011/3/29 Devin Teske dte...@vicor.com: On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 16:52 -0400, dieter...@engineer.com wrote: And while I (think I) recall that the equivalent of /etc/localtime was implemented in some version of SunOS many years ago as a symlink, I believe that approach could be problematic for FreeBSD, as it could impose some unintended requirements on some of the start-up scripts. I have been running FreeBSD and NetBSD with /etc/localtime being a symlink for years and have not seen any problems as a result. The one (and only) problem that I've seen from using a symlink for /etc/localtime is that -- since the /usr partition is not mounted early-on -- boot messages get logged in GMT offset until /usr is mounted. However, some simply ignore this. What boot messages are these? The messages generated during boot -- see /var/log/messages. grep 2011 /var/run/dmesg.boot Those aren't the boot messages I'm referring to (and by convention, I would call those the kernel boot messages as only the kernel messages are found there). Copyright (c) 1992-2011 The FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #9: Sun Mar 6 18:47:36 pst 2011 Huh? Please help me understand why you'd grep for 2011 in the context of this topic (timezone differences). Here's an impirical test: 1. Put your BIOS into GMT 2. Make /etc/localtime a symbolic link to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles 3. Reboot In our experience, the Regents of the University of California message is logged to /var/log/messages in GMT and subsequent messages (produced after /usr is mounted) are logged in the desired timezone. NOTE: This assumes that / and /usr are separate partitions. Not for me (BIOS clock set to UTC) : % uname -a FreeBSD q.gid0.org 9.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT #0 r220114: Mon Mar 28 23:42:11 CEST 2011 r...@q.gid0.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/QUAD amd64 % date mar 29 mar 2011 00:41:41 CEST % uptime 0:41 up 30 mins, 3 users, load averages: 0,06 0,06 0,07 % ls -l /etc/localtime lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 32 29 jui 2008 /etc/localtime@ - /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris % mount tank/freebsd on / (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls) [...] tank/freebsd/usr on /usr (zfs, local, noatime, nfsv4acls) [...] % grep -i regents /var/log/messages Mar 29 00:12:08 q kernel: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. % tail -n 1 /var/log/messages Mar 29 00:12:08 q kernel: kbd0 at ukbd0 I don't think this content is added to /var/log/messages during boot, because the kernel doesn't have access to the log file (and if /usr is not mounted, neither is /var). I thought the kernel messages were saved in memory (system message buffer), and only after boot (and filesystems mounted, and syslogd started) were they dumped to a file. I'm thinking that this must have changed from FreeBSD-4.8 onward. I wasn't personally involved on this one, but did hear from my boss that several sites reported this (but those sites were running FreeBSD 4.8 and 4.11). It's quite possible that the problem was fixed in later releases. In which case, I can jump up and down for joy and tell my boss that it's once-again kosher to set /etc/localtime as a symbolic link. -- Devin ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On 03/28/2011 16:22, Devin Teske wrote: In which case, I can jump up and down for joy and tell my boss that it's once-again kosher to set /etc/localtime as a symbolic link. It has always been true that the only safe way to make /etc/localtime a symlink is to have / and /usr on the same filesystem. This point has been repeated several times in this thread so far, hopefully this can be the last? :) Doug -- Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much. -- OK Go Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS. Yours for the right price. :) http://SupersetSolutions.com/ ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
Hello Doug, I think it got lost in the busy/dark part of my life last year. Feel free to do it, the code is not spectacular or dramatic. If not done when I go home I will do it tonight on my way back from work. Edwin -- Edwin Groothuis ed...@mavetju.org - Original Message - From: Doug Barton To:Ed Maste Cc:David Wolfskill , , Sent:Mon, 28 Mar 2011 14:11:42 -0700 Subject:Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date On 03/27/2011 18:38, Ed Maste wrote: That's what tzsetup does in HEAD - the name of the selected timezone file is stored in /var/db/zoneinfo, and tzsetup -r can be used to copy in an updated file: -r Reinstall the zoneinfo file installed last time. The name is obtained from /var/db/zoneinfo. It looks like this hasn't been MFC'd, although I'm not sure why. The change came in from svn rev 198267 by edwin (CC'd). Edwin, Any reason not to MFC this? Doug -- Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much. -- OK Go Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS. Yours for the right price. :) http://SupersetSolutions.com/ [1] Links: -- [1] http://SupersetSolutions.com/ ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On 03/27/2011 08:38, David Wolfskill wrote: It would (in principle) be possible to teach mergemaster(8) how to do this (possibly by including a cookie in ~/.mergemasterrc or /etc/mergemaster.rc to tell it what the reference zoneinfo pathname is), but this type of approach seems sufficiently different from (the bulk of?) what mergemaster does currently that I'm unconvinced that this is reasonable, let alone ideal. Yeah, I wouldn't be enthusiastic about this. :) So it seems to me that requirements would be: * The content of /etc/localtime must provide the appropriate zoneinfo information, even when/usr/share/zoneinfo/* has been modified (or shortly thereafter, in concert with make installworld). This is more along the lines of something that would be easy to work with in mergemaster. If I can tell what file in /usr/share/zoneinfo to compare /etc/localtime to (ideally with fully path), I'm happy to provide a mechanism in mergemaster to make sure it stays up to date. Doug -- Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much. -- OK Go Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS. Yours for the right price. :) http://SupersetSolutions.com/ ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 01:31:22PM -0700, Doug Barton wrote: On 03/27/2011 08:38, David Wolfskill wrote: It would (in principle) be possible to teach mergemaster(8) how to do this (possibly by including a cookie in ~/.mergemasterrc or /etc/mergemaster.rc to tell it what the reference zoneinfo pathname is), but this type of approach seems sufficiently different from (the bulk of?) what mergemaster does currently that I'm unconvinced that this is reasonable, let alone ideal. Yeah, I wouldn't be enthusiastic about this. :) Indeed. So it seems to me that requirements would be: * The content of /etc/localtime must provide the appropriate zoneinfo information, even when/usr/share/zoneinfo/* has been modified (or shortly thereafter, in concert with make installworld). This is more along the lines of something that would be easy to work with in mergemaster. Hmm... OK If I can tell what file in /usr/share/zoneinfo to compare /etc/localtime to (ideally with fully path), I'm happy to provide a mechanism in mergemaster to make sure it stays up to date. Well, that's the function that the (hypothetical) cookie in ~/.mergemasterrc or /etc/mergemaster.rc was intended to to provide. It could be a simple shell variable, for example. There are other ways to do it, of course -- e.g., the first time the utility is run, it could actually ask, but then cache the information in some place so it could look there first (and if it finds a cached answer, avoid asking again unless it's told to ignore the cache -- as might be reasonable if the machine is moved to a different time zone. But I tend to favor simplicity. :-) Peace, david -- David H. Wolfskill da...@catwhisker.org Depriving a girl or boy of an opportunity for education is evil. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key. pgpZhc53K08HH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 03:27:32PM -0700, David Wolfskill wrote: There are other ways to do it, of course -- e.g., the first time the utility is run, it could actually ask, but then cache the information in some place so it could look there first (and if it finds a cached answer, avoid asking again unless it's told to ignore the cache -- as might be reasonable if the machine is moved to a different time zone. That's what tzsetup does in HEAD - the name of the selected timezone file is stored in /var/db/zoneinfo, and tzsetup -r can be used to copy in an updated file: -r Reinstall the zoneinfo file installed last time. The name is obtained from /var/db/zoneinfo. It looks like this hasn't been MFC'd, although I'm not sure why. The change came in from svn rev 198267 by edwin (CC'd). -Ed ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
On Mar 27, 2011, at 1:31 PM, Doug Barton wrote: On 03/27/2011 08:38, David Wolfskill wrote: So it seems to me that requirements would be: * The content of /etc/localtime must provide the appropriate zoneinfo information, even when/usr/share/zoneinfo/* has been modified (or shortly thereafter, in concert with make installworld). This is more along the lines of something that would be easy to work with in mergemaster. If I can tell what file in /usr/share/zoneinfo to compare /etc/localtime to (ideally with fully path), I'm happy to provide a mechanism in mergemaster to make sure it stays up to date. The best fix is to first add the ability for date(1) to print out the current timezone name. (E.g., America/Los_Angeles) Then it's trivial for mergemaster to update /etc/localtime; just ask date(1) for the timezone name and copy the correct one over /etc/localtime. Unfortunately, I think it's currently impossible for date(1) to do this because the zoneinfo files don't store that information. This is the real reason Solaris uses a symlink; the value of the symlink gives you the timezone name. FWIW, mergemaster is not the only program that would benefit from a canonical way to obtain the name of the current timezone. Cheers, Tim ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date
At Sun, 27 Mar 2011 13:31:22 -0700, Doug Barton wrote: This is more along the lines of something that would be easy to work with in mergemaster. If I can tell what file in /usr/share/zoneinfo to compare /etc/localtime to (ideally with fully path), I'm happy to provide a mechanism in mergemaster to make sure it stays up to date. tzsetup(8) creates /var/db/zoneinfo which contains path to the installed zoneinfo file relative to /usr/share/zineinfo/. $ cat /var/db/zoneinfo Asia/Tokyo $ md5 -q /etc/localtime /usr/share/zoneinfo/$(cat /var/db/zoneinfo) f17769e8eb35e7a08cfedfe9b2f6b5ef f17769e8eb35e7a08cfedfe9b2f6b5ef -- kuro ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
