It looks like I also missed to send this to the list... 

I wanted to double check how this works, so I made sure to verify this
before it actually happens (thanks for SET VTOD)

I used SET VTOD to set the virtual machine offset to the system clock.
In fact, I got it wrong several times because the VM system runs in
another timezone than my Linux guest (the VM timezone is relevant
because that is used to interpret the SET VTOD command). And I was
waiting for something to happen at 02:00 until I realized it is at
03:00 that the clock is set back. :-)

Here we go:

CP Q TIMEZONE
Zone  Direction   Offset   Status
UTC     ----     00.00.00  Inactive
GMT     ----     00.00.00  Inactive
EDT     West     04.00.00  Active
EST     West     05.00.00  Inactive

CP Q VTOD
System TOD:  2004-10-29 10:09:45 (BC0A6E52443BB528)
User TOD:    2004-10-30 19:45:30 (BC0C30E0855B657E)
Delta:       0001C28E411FB056

On Linux, my /etc/localtime is a copy of /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam

linux10:~ # for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16; do date
; sleep 60 ; done
Sun Oct 31 02:57:46 CEST 2004
Sun Oct 31 02:58:46 CEST 2004
Sun Oct 31 02:59:46 CEST 2004
Sun Oct 31 02:00:46 CET 2004
Sun Oct 31 02:01:46 CET 2004

Even the system logger knows how to deal with this:

Oct 31 02:50:23 linux10 kernel: eth0: no IPv6 routers present
Oct 31 02:50:23 linux10 sshd�606�: Accepted publickey for root from ::f
Oct 31 02:59:01 linux10 /USR/SBIN/CRON�641�: (root) CMD ( rm -f /var/sp
Oct 31 02:00:00 linux10 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

So the bottom line is:
1. The hardware TOD should run on UTC and does not need change with DST
2. The z/VM timezone defines the offset to UTC to obtain local time.
Selecting a different timezone on z/VM is done by hand or through
magic in the system configuration file
3. CP commands and some CMS things use local time from CP. Many
services on z/VM don't care about the sudden time shift.
4. Linux uses STCK and gets the LPAR TOD clock which is not affected
by the timezone on z/VM. It does not make a difference whether you IPL
Linux or not.
5. Linux computes local time from the TOD using /etc/localtime and
knows when to switch time zone. Many applications on Linux handle the
sudden jump in local time nicely (either because it does not matter or
because they record in UTC where it does matter).

Too bad my presentation "Teaching Penguins to Tell Time" in Miami
Beach is *after* the weekend of the time change :-)

Rob

PS It does not help you at all if you know how this works, you need to
educate people too. I just got a note saying: "All [...] z/VM systems
will be IPLed Monday morning between 6:00am and 8:00am EST for the
time change."

-- 
Rob van der Heij                  rvdheij @ gmail.com

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