Re: [Freeipmi-devel] [bug #38798] timestamps are interpretted as UT rather than localtime, violating IPMI 2.0 section 37

[Albert Chu]

It's definitely a good idea, but I'm afraid of how many motherboards
would support it.  I could definitely make it an advanced setting to be
used in bmc-device, but I would be scared to use it as a mechanism to
determine local vs. gmt time in ipmi-sel.

Al

On Sat, 2013-04-27 at 08:35 +0000, Rob Swindell wrote:
> I for one think that's a great idea. Do you happen to know of BMCs which 
> actually support the "Get SEL Time UTC Offset" command?
> 
> One point of frequent confusion is that there are actually 3 potential 
> interpretations of a time-stamp:
> 1. Local time for the managed system/BMC
> 2. Local time for the management console
> 3. UTC
> 
> The IPMI specification defines time-stamps sent from the management
> controller as format #1. If the management console can get the managed
> system's UTC offset (e.g. using "Get SEL Time UTC Offset"), then it
> could convert the timestamps from format #1 to either #2 or #3 (for
> display, storage or comparison purposes).
> 
> -Rob
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden On Behalf Of Liebig, Holger
> Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 10:51 PM
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Freeipmi-devel] [bug #38798] timestamps are interpretted as UT 
> rather than localtime, violating IPMI 2.0 section 37
> 
> Al,
> If this gets fixed (and if possible) could you please include handling of the 
> optional Get SEL Time UTC offset command introduced in Errata 4? This can be 
> used to convert non localtime timestamps back to calendar time and come in 
> handy when a BMC is configured to use a NTP server. From calendar time you 
> can then convert it to localtime or UTC using the appropriate libc functions 
> (localtime_r() and gmtime_r()). And as generic improvement: customers with 
> BMC's around the world might appreciate a command line option to display SEL 
> timestamps in GMT in addition to localtime in order to correlate events to 
> each other.
> 
> Thanks,
> Holger
> 
> > 
> > URL:
> >   <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?38798>
> > 
> >                  Summary: timestamps are interpretted as UTC rather than
> > localtime, violating IPMI 2.0 section 37
> >                  Project: GNU FreeIPMI
> >             Submitted by: rswindell
> >             Submitted on: Mon 22 Apr 2013 04:33:14 AM GMT
> >                 Category: ipmi-sel
> >                 Severity: 3 - Normal
> >                 Priority: 5 - Normal
> >               Item Group: Improper Behaviour
> >                   Status: None
> >                  Privacy: Public
> >              Assigned to: None
> >              Open/Closed: Open
> >          Discussion Lock: Any
> >         Operating System: None
> > 
> >     _______________________________________________________
> > 
> > Details:
> > 
> > IPMI 2.0 section 37 ("Timestamp Format") states that all timestamps (e.g.
> > for SDR repository and SEL) are "representing local time ... does not
> > include GMT offset.", yet ipmi-sel and bmc-device interpret timestamps as
> > though they are based on GMT/UTC and apply the local timezone bias before
> > printing in human-readable form.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >     _______________________________________________________
> > 
> > Reply to this item at:
> > 
> >   <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?38798>
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> >   Message sent via/by Savannah
> >   http://savannah.gnu.org/
> > 
> > 
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> 
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-- 
Albert Chu
address@hidden
Computer Scientist
High Performance Systems Division
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory