[SGVLUG] more weird time-zone issues. (re CVS)

[Sean O'Donnell]

Ok, so I'm sorry for the remedial timezone questions again, but I don't
quite get this one.

On my laptop, I have the date: Fri Feb 16 13:51:53 PST 2007

On my CVS/Web Server, I have the date: Fri Feb 16 15:02:45 MST 2007

When I check-in a file to my CVS/Web Server, it updates the $Id: keyword
as such:

///$Id: somefile.c,v 1.5 2007/02/16 22:03:26 seanodonnell Exp $
/
It appears that the time is (almost) exactly 7 hours ahead of what my
CVS/Web Server returns from the date command, so I'd say it's safe to
assume it's not my laptop that has the problem here. *OK*

I don't have 'root' user access, although it is a Virtual Private Server
(VPS) and I do have some 'limited' access to certain configuration files
(such as httpd.conf, and so on), but not to the date (/etc/localtime)
file, nor to certain executables/commands.

I noticed that /etc/timezone (which I can edit) contains the following
setting: TZ=US/Eastern

I changed it to TZ=America/Los_Angeles

but I don't have permission to change the date manually (date -s), nor
to set the hardware clock (hwclock), so I assume the next time they
reboot this server, that will take affect?

My main concern is not so much the fact that it's on GMT, or was
previously set to the east coast timezone, as that is only a 3 hour diff
(not 7).

What I'm wondering is how/where CVS is getting such a timestamp that
differs from the system it's running on???

This instance of CVS (on my VPS) was installed manually by me, and runs
as my user (not root), so I don't think the VPS configuration (outside
of my vps instance, e.g. the actual (non-virtual) system) would have
anything to do with it, would it?

Anyhow, appreciate your insight, as always! =)

Sean O'Donnell
South Pasadena, CA
sean at seanodonnell.com