Local or UTC time

[Petz]

During the FreeBSD install. You get asked the question

Is this machine's CMOS clock set to UTC? If it is set to local time or you don't know, please choose NO here!

Would it not be better to show the user what the time is currently set to on the system/CMOS? This would allow the user to make an informed decision based on where they know the server to be and the current time.

For example. If I know the system is in Sydney Australia(GMT+10). I could easily answer the below.

The system clock is currently Wednesday 17/07/2013 6:46 PM (18:46).

Is your systems clock set to UTC/GMT(Greenwich Mean Time)? If it is set to your local time or you don't know, please choose NO here!

 

[fonz]

Sounds easy enough to implement. I think it might not be a bad idea.

P.S. GMT is deprecated

 

[wblock@]

All bsdinstall(8) does there is run tzsetup(8), the change would have to be made there. That said, it seems like a reasonable change to me. The place to change is usr.sbin/tzsetup/tzetup.c, line 1008.

 

[kpa]

Good idea. Also it would be good to mention that if the machine has been running only MS Windows it is 100% sure that the RTC is in local time.

 

[SirDice]

It doesn't really matter what you choose if FreeBSD is the only OS on the machine. If you dualboot however you should choose "NO".

 

[throAU]

It doesn't really matter what you choose if FreeBSD is the only OS on the machine. If you dualboot however you should choose "NO".

Depends what the other OS you are using does...

 

[SirDice]

Depends what the other OS you are using does...

Windows certainly expects the BIOS clock to be local time.