Red Hat Knowledgebase

Release Found: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5

Due to the US Energy Policy Act of 2005, the US Daylight Saving Time period in 2007 is being extended forward 3 weeks to early March and extended back a further week into November. Clients with Java applications that are sensitive to time and date information will have to take preventive action to ensure that all the relevant clock settings are correct.

The information provided below explains how to take corrective measures for the IBM supplied JRE:

The preferred approach for the customers is to update to the latest Service Refresh that includes the necessary fix. Java 1.4.2 SR7, which is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 3, 4, and 5, contains the fixes for US, Canada, Bermuda, Brazil and Western Australia. Java 1.5 SR3 which is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4 and 5 contains the DST fixes for US and Canada. The latest packages are available from Red Hat Network (RHN). The packages can be updated using the up2date utility if the system is registered with RHN. For example, to update the IBM Java Runtime environment, run the command:

        
#up2date java-1.4.2-ibm

If updating to the latest Service Refresh is not feasible, a second approach would be to use the "DST Utility" to update just those lines of code that are affected by the DST changes. This utility and the related information are available at: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/dst/index.html

Please note that this utility is not supported by Red Hat.

Irrespective of the method that is used, an Operating System fix would have to be applied as well.

Additionally issues were found on March 9th 2007 in regards to IBM Java, and DST. Red Hat will be shipping updated packages once a fix has been finalized, but users should consult the following url for more information: