3.71) How do I set up Solaris for my time zone and daylight saving rules?

You don't need to adjust your clock. Internally, Solaris uses Universal Time and is unaffected by time zone and daylight saving. However, you may need to adjust the TZ line in /etc/default/init to match your location, so that programs can read and display time stamps appropriately for your location. For example, you should use the line:

	TZ=Australia/Broken_Hill

if you are in Broken Hill, Australia. After you change the TZ line in /etc/default/init, reboot to propagate the change to all processes.

A TZ setting like Australia/Broken_Hill operates by referring to a file /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo/Australia/Broken_Hill that contains compiled data about the history of time zone and daylight saving changes at that location. You can run the time zone compiler yourself with a command like the following:

	# In Solaris 8 and later: cd /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo/src
	cd /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo
	/usr/sbin/zic africa asia australasia europe northamerica southamerica

This command generates compiled time zone files for all the locations mentioned in the text files 'africa', 'asia', etc. This is a much larger set than the set of compiled time zone files shipped by default in Solaris. If you're in an unusual location, you'll need to run zic to get the proper time zone file; e.g. you must run zic to get TZ=Antarctica/South_Pole to work.

Time zones and daylight saving rules change every now and then, so the files in /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo are periodically updated by Sun, and you may need to install a time zone patch (e.g. patch 103834 for Solaris 2.5.1) to bring things up to date for your location. Or you can install the most recent version of the time zone text files from the public domain time zone database <ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/>, and compile the files yourself with zic.

You can also use a POSIX TZ setting like TZ=CET-1CEST,M3.5.0/2,M10.5.0/3 as described in the environ(5) man page, but this is more confusing and is easy to get wrong, and it mishandles time stamps preceding the most recent time zone or daylight saving rule change.

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