This article describes steps on how to change the Rackware Management Module (RMM) server time/time zone when RMM is configured on OCI Cloud.
For this example, assume that your current RMM server OS is Oracle Linux 7.x and its time/time zone is in UTC. You would like to change this to US East Coast Time.
Before you Begin:
Changing the time/time zone of the RMM server “may” invalidate the existing RMM license and may require a new license file to be applied.
For RMM on OCI, please refer to https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/Tasks/configuringntpservice.htm for more info. Certain OS’s use the ‘Chrony’ service for time syncing by default, which is the case in this example.
Background:
RMM software is installed/licensed on a Linux based server in Cloud platform for either Migration or DR purposes
Use case:
Customer wants to configure the RMM time/time zone to their choice – in this example to US East Coast Time Zone
Preparation:
This activity is to be performed when all the DR Policies have been paused and there are no sync’s currently in progress.
Steps:
- From the RMM server as a ‘root’ user, execute the command(s):
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# date
Tue Aug 31 22:59:24 UTC 2021
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# ls -lth /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 Aug 31 22:59 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# rw rmm show
(Gather the output of this command in a text file and save it)
- Disable the ‘chronyd’ service & prevent it from automatically starting at system start
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# systemctl stop chronyd
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# systemctl disable chronyd
- Backup the current ‘localtime’ file under /etc/ directory and delete the file
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# cp /etc/localtime /etc/localtime.orig
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# rm /etc/localtime
- Note - All US timezones are located under the /usr/share/zoneinfo/US directory as shown below.
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/
Alaska Arizona Eastern Hawaii Michigan Pacific
Aleutian Central East-Indiana Indiana-Starke Mountain Samoa
Link the Eastern time file from the above US directory to the /etc/localtime directory as shown below
[root@rackware-rmm ~]# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern /etc/localtime
- Set the hardware clock to match the current time
[root@rackware-rmm etc]# hwclock --systohc
- Now the timezone on your Linux system is changed to US Eastern time as shown below.
[root@rackware-rmm etc]# date
Tue Aug 31 23:01:24 EDT 2021
[root@rackware-rmm scripts]# timedatectl
Local time: Tue 2021-08-31 23:01:26 EDT
Universal time: Wed 2021-09-01 03:01:26 UTC
RTC time: Wed 2021-09-01 03:01:26
Time zone: US/Eastern (EDT, -0400)
NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no
DST active: yes
Last DST change: DST began at
Sun 2021-03-14 01:59:59 EST
Sun 2021-03-14 03:00:00 EDT
Next DST change: DST ends (the clock jumps one hour backwards) at
Sun 2021-11-07 01:59:59 EDT
Sun 2021-11-07 01:00:00 EST
7. At this point the time zone of the RMM server has been changed, but the log files will still be using the original time zone. Issue the following commands so that the time zone of the log records will be changed:
systemctl stop syslog.socket rsyslog.service
systemctl start syslog.socket rsyslog.service
Post Changes:
Resume all DRPolicies if ‘paused’ before beginning this activity. You may occasionally see a licensing error with starting SYNC’s, something like: “License Status : Temporarily disabled ( Reason: NTP Error: Either the NTP daemon failed or the NTP Server is not reachable )”. Perform the below steps and send us the licensing file
- [root@rackware-rmm etc]# rwadm relicense
Found supported RedHat/CentOS release.
CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core)
WARNING: This command will generate a new preinstall file but will also INVALIDATE the existing license on next RMM restart.
If you wish to continue using RMM till you get the new license, DO NOT STOP RMM after running this command.
Do you wish to continue? (Y/N) [N]: y
PreInstall file generated at /etc/rackware/rwlicense_preinstall_1630503876. Please email this file to licensing@rackwareinc.com to get the license.
- Email to ‘Licensing@RackwareInc.com’ the newly generated preinstall from /etc/rackware/ (in this case /etc/rackware/rwlicense_preinstall_1630503876) along with the output of rw rmm show saved above. We will send you back the new license file with the instructions to apply.
Note:
1) Similar steps may be followed if RMM server is installed on other Clouds (or On-Prem Datacenter) – please make sure to refer to respective documentation on this topic, beforehand.
This ends the procedure to change the RMM server time/time zone