Keeping /etc/localtime up-to-date

[Devin Teske]

On Mon, 2011-03-28 at 16:52 -0400, dieterbsd at 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