TZCONFIG(G)       Debian Timezone Configuration       TZCONFIG(G)



NAME
       tzconfig - set the local timezone

SYNOPSIS
       tzconfig

DESCRIPTION
       This  manual  page  explains  how you can use the tzconfig
       utility to set the local timezone. This  is  necessary  to
       let  your  system know about the difference between system
       time and local time (the time in the real  world).  It  is
       also necessary to make your system behave nicely when your
       location uses Daylight Savings Time.

       A valid system time together with the correct  local  time
       zone will give you best performance and highest reliablil-
       ity. It is especially important in a network  environment,
       where  even  small  time  differences  can  make  a mirror
       refetch a whole ftp site, or where time stamps on external
       file systems are used.

       tzconfig  is called without any parameters from the shell.
       First it presents the current setting and asks for verifi-
       cation to change it. It then invokes tzselect(t) to choose
       a timezone.

       You may press Ctrl-C to interrupt the script at any  time.

       After  you  made  your choice, tzconfig will try to change
       the timezone for you. See the Internals section below  for
       technical details. You must have root privilegies to actu-
       ally change anything. Please use  tzselect(t)  as  a  user
       space command to just look at the timezones. It will print
       the local time in any timezone recognized by the system.

A WORD OF WARNING
       What timezone is correct for your system?  It  depends  on
       the  geographical  location  of  the machine.  Getting the
       correct location is important, but the  system  must  also
       know  how  your  hardware clock is set. Most DOS based PCs
       set their hardware clock on Local Time,  while  most  UNIX
       systems set their hardware clock to UTC.

       The  Debian  GNU/Linux  system gains its knowledge of this
       setting from the file /etc/default/rcS.   This  file  con-
       tains  either  the line GMT="-u", which indicates that the
       hardware clock is set to UTC,  or  it  contains  the  line
       GMT="",  which declares the hardware clock is set to Local
       Time. If these setting are correct, and the hardware clock
       is  truely  set  as indicated, then configuring the proper
       timezone for the machine will cause the  proper  date  and
       time  to be displayed. If these are not set correctly, the
       the reported time will be quite incorrect. See  hwclock(k)
       for more details on this topic.


Internals
       The  work  done  by tzconfig is actually pretty simple. It
       just updates the link /etc/localtime to point to the  cor-
       rect timezone installed in /usr/share/zoneinfo/.

       There  is nothing wrong with doing this manually. However,
       using tzconfig you don't have to remember the path to  the
       timezones.

FILES
       /etc/timezone  /etc/localtime  /usr/share/zoneinfo

SEE ALSO
       hwclock(k) tzselect(t)

AUTHOR
       Copyright  1998  Marcus  Brinkmann  <brinkmd@debian.org>
       Edits Copyright 1998 Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>

       Please see nroff source for legal notice.










Debian                     12 June 1998               TZCONFIG(G)