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Checking Unix system readiness for new Daylight Saving Time

9 March 2007

Planet Ubuntu
on most Linux and Unix system you should have access to the zdump command from the command line. If you run this command:

zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007

you will get something like using the output from my system:

/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 09:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 01:59:59 2007 PST isdst=0 gmtoff=-28800
/etc/localtime Sun Mar 11 10:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 11 03:00:00 2007 PDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-25200
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 08:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:59:59 2007 PDT isdst=1 gmtoff=-25200
/etc/localtime Sun Nov 4 09:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Nov 4 01:00:00 2007 PST isdst=0 gmtoff=-28800

On some Unix computers /etc/localtime doesn’t exist and thus you will have to specify your timezone manually. In my case, on the west coast of North America, that means running this command:

zdump -v PST8PDT | grep 2007

If your system is ready for the early switch to DST the first two lines of the output of zdump will contain “Sun Mar 11″. If your computer is not ready, the first two lines will contains “Sun Apr 1″

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