[arch-general] timezones

[Mauro Santos]

On 08-11-2011 18:20, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> I have
> HARDWARECLOCK="UTC"
> TIMEZONE="right/Portugal"

Here I use Europe/Lisbon as timezone, I guess one should use a valid
timezone as found in /usr/share/zoneinfo

> in /etc/rc.conf, but I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. I use
> clockspeed to keep the clock synchronized with a ntp server, and other

>From the small description on the download(?) page [1] of clockspeed the
objective of the program is to try and keep the time accurate when there
is no network connectivity, but you say you synchronize with a ntp
server. ntpd[2] also keeps a drift file to account for clock drift and
ntpd is widely used and well maintained.

> sofware requires a "right/*" timezone. Anyone has any knowledge to share
> about this issue?  For example, "date" gives output that ignores leap
> seconds. Is this a date issue, unrelated with rc.conf? Anyone else using
> a right/* timezone?

I'd say leap seconds are a time reference problem, date only reports
what the time reference says. If you continually sync with a ntp server
then leap seconds will be taken care of when ntpd syncs, I'd say that if
you need such an accurate time reference that leap seconds matter then
maybe using a pc and the normal timekeeping methods is not the best choice.

[1] http://cr.yp.to/clockspeed.html
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_Time_Protocol_daemon

-- 
Mauro Santos