Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!ima!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Date: Can it be specific to a shell??
Message-ID: <35@minya.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 89 03:11:50 GMT
References: <72074@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <1138@virtech.UUCP> <322@bilver.UUCP> <310@sopwith.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
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Lines: 29

In article <310@sopwith.UUCP>, snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy) writes:
> In article <17@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
> 
> |Unfortunately, Berkeley systems haven't generally adopted this approach.
> |BSD systems still store the timezone in the kernel, and many programs
> |use the kernel's idea of the timezone regardless of anything in the 
> |user's environment.
> 
> You want the system to have its own idea of the timezone, for things
> like uucp.  You do not want uucp looking at the user's TZ.

I'm not sure I agree, but let's agree for argument's sake.  It's still
not necessary for uucp (i.e., /bin/uucp, and /usr/lib/uucp/uucico when
triggered by uucp rather than cron) to get the timezone from the kernel.
I've surrounded both of these programs with small scripts on several
systems, so I could modify their environments.  It's easy enough to
rename them and create a script with the original name that sets the 
TZ environment variable, then execs the real program.  I've also done
this so I could keep extra records saying who was calling them when.  
This is especially useful for the mail command; you might consider 
a mail script that calls one or more mailers, and if they all fail,
sends the mail to a nearby machine for routing.  The extra layer is
not a big enough overhead that anyone ever notices.

-- 
#echo 'Opinions Copyright 1989 by John Chambers; for licensing information contact:'
echo '	John Chambers <{adelie,ima,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)'
echo ''
saying