Installation guide

4.4 Customizing Your Time Zone
Information about configuring your system’s time zone is in Chapter 5.
This section describes how to administer local and worldwide time zone
information on your system.
Time zone information is stored in files in the /etc/zoneinfo directory.
The /etc/zoneinfo/localtime file is linked to a file in the
/etc/zoneinfo directory and specifies the local time zone. These files are
linked during system installation, but, as superuser, you can change your
local time zone by relinking the /etc/zoneinfo/localtime file. For
example, the following command changes the local time zone to Canada’s
Atlantic time zone:
# ln -sf /etc/zoneinfo/Canada/Atlantic /etc/zoneinfo/localtime
The /etc/zoneinfo/sources directory contains source files that specify
the worldwide time zone and daylight savings time information that is
used to generate the files in the /etc/zoneinfo directory. You can change
the information in the source files and then use the zic command to
generate a new file in the /etc/zoneinfo directory. Refer to the zic
(8)
reference page for more information.
You can also change the default time zone information by setting the TZ
environment variable in your .login file or shell environment file. If you
define the TZ environment variable, its value overrides the default time
zone information specified by /etc/zoneinfo/localtime. By default, the
TZ variable is not defined.
The TZ environment variable has the following syntax:
stdoffset
[ dst[offset][, start[/ time], end[/time]]]
You can also specify the following syntax:
stdoffset
[ dst[ offset]]
The TZ environment variable syntaxes have the following parameters:
std and dst Specifies the three or more characters that
designate the standard (
std ) or daylight savings
time (
dst ) zone.
_____________ Note _____________
Daylight savings time is called daylight
summer time in some locales.
4–20 Customizing the System Environment