Description of problem: If /etc/localtime is a symbolic link to a file under /usr (apparently, some setup tools set the timezone that way) and /usr is not on /, then hwclock in /etc/rc.sysinit is invoked when /etc/localtime points on a non-existent file, and thus the local timezone is assumed to be UTC. If the real timezone is NOT UTC, and the hardware clock is set in local time, the system clock gets offset by some amount with respect to the hardware clock. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible:always Steps to Reproduce: 1.check that /etc/localtime is a symbolic link to a partition outside / (and thus not mounted immediately at bootup time) 2.set the local time zone to something else than UTC and the hardware clock mode to local time 3.reboot Actual results: The system clock gets an incorrect time. Expected results: The system clock should get the time from the hardware clock. Additional info:
Your system is misconfigured. /etc/localtime should be a file. There was a redhat-config-time bug around this timeframe in that it made it a symlink, it's since been fixed.