From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jan 13 19:25:43 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA00823 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:25:43 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gdi.uoregon.edu (gdi.uoregon.edu [128.223.170.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA00808 for ; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:25:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Received: from localhost (dwhite@localhost) by gdi.uoregon.edu (8.8.7/8.8.8) with SMTP id TAA24768; Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:21:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 19:21:50 -0800 (PST) From: Doug White Reply-To: Doug White To: "tien@bisnews.co.th" cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: year 2000 compliance In-Reply-To: <199801120433.LAA10472@mailhub.bisnews.co.th> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, tien@bisnews.co.th wrote: > I have questions regarding year 2000 compliance of FreeBSD > version 2.1.5. Is FreeBSD 2.1.5 year 2000 compliant? Do you have > any document support on your compliance status? Where could I get > all the information about FreeBSD year 2000 compliance? Your > answers are very essential to us in order to develop our systems. > Can you please reply to us as soon as possible. UNIX systems in general should be year 2000 OK. UNIX/FreeBSD represent time as seconds since Jan 1, 1970, so they are OK until they fill up a 32 bit integer, which would occur in 2038 or so if technology never advanced. We are on the brink of 64-bit machines, though, and no doubt that the size will increase well before there's a problem. Most, if not all, of the system utilities do their work using this format (time_t), so they should not be affected either. The big problem is in user utilities. Not everyone may know about time_t and used 2 digit years. You should check your user programs out; easiest way is to build a test box, set the date to Dec 31, 1999, 11:59pm and watch for fireworks. :) At some point you should check your server hardware that they roll the date properly (esp. really really old stock). Hope this helps. Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major