SUMMARY: SunOS and the year 2000

From: etnibsd!dwy@uunet.uu.net
Date: Tue Dec 10 1996 - 15:21:55 CST


First thanks to those of you who responded, (see list below)

(Paraphrased from Kirk Anderson)
SunOs will happily role over from 31-Dec-1999 to the year 2000 however
the date function will not allow you to set a date past 31-Dec-1999.

(Even thou it won't set the date, it will report it properly. Also note,
that scripts utilizing the sun distributed date will fail.)

Another responder pointed out that gnu date will handle the date properly.

The majority indicated that UNIX keeps time in seconds since Jan 1, 1970 and
is stored as a 64 bit value. So for UNIX systems it will not be a problem until
the year 2037 (2^64). (someone passed along this quote "who cares--we'll all
be retired by then!")

Several responders tried to make the point that "SunOS is going away" and
we should get going on replacing it with Solaris. The problem with this is
the 500 legacy systems we have installed through out the world. (But thats
our problem)

Recommended sources for additional information included:
        http://www.year2000.com/

        http://www.sun.com/sunworldonline/swol-04-1996/swol-04-sysadmin.html

        SunExpert October 1996 UNIX Basics ( Year 2000 )

        SunSolve Document enotify/13631

The only information still being investigated is the following information
found via a link from www.year2000.com

> http://www.mitre.org/research/cots/vendors/SunOS.html
>
> Products: Sparcstations, SunOS, Solaris
>
> The current beta version of Solaris has all UNIX System V fixes and known C library fixes.
> It should be available for general release before the end of 1996. SunOS is no longer
> being upgraded, and has known bugs in system and library routines. Setting the date beyond
> the year 2000 and rebooting will cause the clock to lock on SunOS 4.1.3 and Solaris 2.3 and 2.4.
>
>
> Last Updated 06-01-1996
> Source: SenCom Test

Thanks again to those who responded.

Carl E. Sloan
Karl E. Vogel
Liew.Chee.Wah
Matt Hill
Seifert, John
Arolovitch Alan
Chris Liljenstolpe
Herbert Wengatz
*Kirk Anderson
Rich Kulawiec
Stephen Harris
Tony Clark
John Reynolds
Anthony Worrall
uunet!acm.org!edd
uunet!esoc.esa.de!nobroin
Michael J. Shon
uunet!tisny.com!fpardo (Frank Pardo)
Michael Sullivan
Kevin Sheehan

-- 
   David Young    - Eaton Corp. -    dyoung@bev.etn.com
                    Beverly Ma



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