How to check/upgrade Cisco ACS's timezone file

[Nadav]

Hi everyone,

I have ACS 5.8 installed and I'd like to check whether its timezone files are up to date for DST. Any ideas how this is done?

If the files are out of date, is there a procedure to update them that doesn't require upgrading my ACS server?

Thanks!

[Gagandeep Singh]

Hi,

To display the time zone as set on the system, use the show timezone command in the EXEC mode.

acs/admin# show timezone

To obtain a list of time zones from which you can select, use the show timezones command in the EXEC mode.

acs/admin# show timezones

Regards

Gagan

PS: rate if it helps!!!

[Nadav]

Hi there,

I am referring to the timezone files, not the configured timezone. These are the tzdata files that determine when each timezone's DST will take effect, when will it end, and the offset.

These are updated periodically for Linux systems due to regional litigation. For example it may be decided that from next year, on the third Sunday of March DST will take effect. 

If these files are out of date, that means that the DST changes will occur based on dated rules and out of sync with the rest of the enterprise. 

[Gagandeep Singh]

ACS 5.x currently does not support daylight savings time. The underlying
Linux OS does, and you can see it take effect, but the log collector has
no sense of this, and you will see the entries sorted based on hour:minute
received, regardless of the daylight setting in effect.

CSCtr77935    Daylight saving time configuration option on ACS

[Nadav]

Thanks, I had noticed that the Linux OS updated the time according to DST (performed a manual clock change to a couple of hours before DST ends). I wasn't aware that this isn't consistent with the log collector.

The workaround suggested requires changing the clock using "clock set" in the CLI. However, my NTP servers would surely update the time to the time provided to the rest of the network, so this change would be reverted automatically. Is this not so? If I were to remove the NTP servers from the configuration, I could jeopardize the accuracy of my logs.

[Gagandeep Singh]

Ideally Yes, NTP will sync up the time with Network.

Also removing NTP is not a good option. However, you can try in off hours by removing NTP.

Regards

Gagan

PS: rate if it helps!!!!

[Nadav]

Thanks for the quick responses.

If NTP will synchronize the time on the ACS server, and removing the NTP servers from configuration is a bad idea (for obvious reasons), then how can Cisco suggest a workaround of changing the system clock manually on the server?

To me it sounds like a futile workaround.