Description of problem: System lost 4 hours every time I booted. After installing, /etc/localtime was a regular file. At some point after enabling ntpd, this was changed to a symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York. This caused the time to be set incorrectly (timezone assumed to be UTC) during sysinit, before the /usr filesystem was mounted. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Build system with separate /usr filesystem and hardware clock set to localtime. 2. Enable ntpd. 3. Boot without networking. 4. Disable ntpd. 5. Reboot Expected results: Time should be off by the difference between UTC and localtime, if Additional info: What ever is creating a link to the timezone file (ntpd?) is causing this problem.
ntp does not symlink /etc/localtime... you should maybe run redhat-config-date
Please read my bug statement above. I have fixed the problem and found it to be that something created a link from /usr/share/zoneinfo..... to /etc/timezone. The original problem occured after I enabled NTP and then did not have network upon reboot. I am not sure at this point what created the link, but it was definitely the source of my problems. I ran redhat-date-config on more than one occasion. Perhaps this was the source of my problems, as I enabled NTP from that gui, rather than thru CLI (laziness will get you ever time).
Indeed, that is the problem, when NTP is enable via redhat-config-date, the original /etc/localtime is removed, and a link is created to /usr/share/zoneinfo....
then I'll change the component, cause this is no ntp bug..
Should be fixed in redhat-config-date-1.5.9-10 in Rawhide.