[evil-olive]

you've got it backwards - the server clock should be in UTC, and if an individual piece of software needs to know the location, that should be provided to it separately.

for example, I've got a server in my garage that runs Home Assistant. the overall server timezone is set to UTC, but I've configured Home Assistant with my "real" timezone so that I can define automation rules based on my local time.

Home Assistant also knows my GPS coordinates so that it can fetch weather, fire automation rules based on sunrise/sunset, etc. that wouldn't be possible with only the timezone.

[jay_kyburz]

I kind of assumed all computer clocks were UTC, but that you also specified a location, and when asked what time it is, it did the math for you.

[pseudalopex]

Windows assumes computer clocks are local time. It can be configured to assume UTC. Other operating systems assume computer clocks are UTC. Many log tools are not time zone aware.

[mrheosuper]

Computer clock is just counter, if you set the start counting point to UTC, then it's UTC, you set it to local time, then it's local time.

[evil-olive]

that's the difference between "aware" and "naive" timestamps. Python has a section explaining it in their docs (though the concept applies to any language):

https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#aware-and-na...

[TylerE]

AKA time zones