Ready for DST?

Daylight Savings Time in the US. Is it the end of the world again March 11th 2007? For most of us our Linux boxes will be just fine. The DST change has been fixed in most modern Linux Distros. But if you are still using your 2.4 kernel based ancient distro, you may want to look into fixing it. That isn’t what this tip is about rather proof that your box is going to make the switch. You should see this when you run the zdump command below:

zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 08:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 MST isdst=0 gmtoff=-25200
/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 09:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 MDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-21600
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 07:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:59:59 2007 MDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-21600
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 08:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:00:00 2007 MST isdst=0 gmtoff=-25200

If you are seeing this then you probably need to fix it some year:

zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
/etc/localtime Sun Apr 1 07:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Apr 1 01:59:59 2007 CST isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600
/etc/localtime Sun Apr 1 08:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Apr 1 03:00:00 2007 CDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
/etc/localtime Sun Oct 28 06:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Oct 28 01:59:59 2007 CDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-18000
/etc/localtime Sun Oct 28 07:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Oct 28 01:00:00 2007 CST isdst=0 gmtoff=-21600

At first when I found this tidbit I thought I would be just fine since I run my NTP service to keep good time. Well this technically doesn’t correct your computers time. The kernel clock uses UTC time not DST. Your computer only translates the DST from UTC time by the TZ database as shown above. So NTP only changes local time not system time.

The True Meaning of Friday the 13th

Our ISP OneEighty Communications has had major problems with their service since yesterday. When I called, they seemed to have an idea of what it might be and were on it. Today they had no clue yet. I was going to be bummed if I couldn’t post today! Anyway they seem to have it under control now just before noon. Almost seems faster than before too.

Now the QC wireless isn’t connecting properly. I’m thinking it might be an incompatibility issue. Looking into the driver/firmware versions. So It can still connect to the farther but open AP.

First thing this morning at work I had two users with no connection to the AS-400. I used to see this once in a while and just had to recreate their profile for the connection. Luckily I didn’t forget to try that and it worked fine for both. Seems to have been sparked by some administrative duties my coworker was performing to eliminate extra sessions that were laying around. Will have to keep that in mind next time it happens.

Got the dual VCR/DVD unit set up at home now. Haven’t tested any media out yet but was just configuring it for channels and date/time. Seems that it can get the date/time automatically via broadcast from local channels. It didn’t set over night so I just set it manually this morning.

Put the UPS in-line. Seems that one of my plugs on the wall is a little loose and the battery kept kicking in so I moved it to the bottom plug and all is well. Must be a short. Also played with the Seagate tape drive. I recalled working on it once before. Seems that it fails to turn the tape. The only tape motion is by the rubber wheels tugging it but who knows. I’m going to check if they might repair it for a descent price. They are worth about $150. Who knows, maybe I’ll buy it from the company for my home server.

Wow the USA Digital techs came already this morning to pick up their antennae. I think they planned to take their modem as well but I got the manager trained well to call me about everything. I told them to hold off taking it because I wanted to investigate the possibility that they may have taken ours during one of many service calls.