Question about cron timing

Hello,

Before I begin, if this is not of general interest please feel free
to e-mail your suggestions to me. Reply-To: is properly set to
facilitate that.

I have a question about cron's timing. Some strange things have
been happening lately as far as timing is concerned.

I've looked in /var/log/cron and find that the time stamps are
really strange. If I edit with crontab -e, the log entry shows th
proper time stamp but for anything that cron runs, it shows a time
stamp for the hour before. Here's a short snippet from the log file:

Mar 23 14:50:00 sorsby /usr/sbin/cron[30592]: (crs) CMD /home/crs/bin/getmail
Mar 23 15:52:56 sorsby crontab[30613]: (root) BEGIN EDIT (root)
Mar 23 15:53:23 sorsby crontab[30613]: (root) REPLACE (root)
Mar 23 15:53:23 sorsby crontab[30613]: (root) END EDIT (root)
Mar 23 14:54:00 sorsby /usr/sbin/cron[131]: (root) RELOAD (tabs/root)
Mar 23 14:55:00 sorsby /usr/sbin/cron[30618]: (root) CMD (/usr/libexec/atrun)
Mar 23 14:55:00 sorsby /usr/sbin/cron[30619]: (crs) CMD (/home/crs/bin/getmail

Notice that cron ran getmail at what it thinks is 14:50. A couple
minutes later, I edited root's crontab and it shows that event at
the correct time, 51:52:56. Then, after my edit, it reverts back
to the incorrect time. It's as though all of the system except
cron is on Daylight Saving Time but cron is on standard time.

Does cron *not* use the same clock as the rest of the system?
I tried looking in _Unix System Administration Handbook_ by Nemeth,
et al. but couldn't find anything about how cron is actually timed.

How does one tell cron that we're on daylight saving time now?
(And, yes, I did fetch the time-zone configuration file from
ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2007b.tar.gz and perform the
steps per:
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5102-10877-6163042.html
and, as far as I can tell, everything is running on DST -- *except*
cron.

What must I do to tell cron to run at the same time as the rest of
the system? Surely it isn't necessary to reboot the system to
convince cron that the time's really an hour later than it thinks
it is... Would that even do it?

For what it's worth I'm running freeBSD 4.11 (don't ask) as
distributed on the CDROM.

Many thanks for any help and kindest regards,

Charlie
--
Charlie Sorsby
crs@xxxxxxxx
Edgewood, NM 87015
USA
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Question about cron timing
    ... Reply-To: is properly set to ... I've looked in /var/log/cron and find that the time stamps are ... Notice that cron ran getmail at what it thinks is 14:50. ... How does one tell cron that we're on daylight saving time now? ...
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  • Re: Question about cron timing
    ... Reply-To: is properly set to ... I've looked in /var/log/cron and find that the time stamps are ... Notice that cron ran getmail at what it thinks is 14:50. ... How does one tell cron that we're on daylight saving time now? ...
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