126 lines
5.2 KiB
Text
126 lines
5.2 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN" [
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<!ENTITY date "$Date: 1998-12-07 03:51:00 $">
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<!ENTITY title 'Year 2000 Compatibility (aka "Millennium Bug")'>
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<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "includes.sgml"> %includes;
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]>
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<!-- $Id: y2kbug.sgml,v 1.11 1998-12-07 03:51:00 jkoshy Exp $ -->
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<html>
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&header;
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<p>As management understanding of the Year 2000 problem (aka, "The
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Millennium Bug") increases, more and more companies are demanding
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official statements from the vendors of their hardware and software
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as to how their product will handle the year 2000 date rollover.</p>
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<p>Organizations that use unix and unix like operating systems
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such as FreeBSD are already one step ahead of the problem. FreeBSD
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will properly maintain time long after year 2000 passes.</p>
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<h2>Background information</h2>
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<p><i>(This section based on the text from the <a
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href="http://www.linux.org.uk/mbug.html">Linux Y2K compliance
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page</a>)</i></p>
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<p>As with all Unix and Unixlike operating systems, time and dates in
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FreeBSD are represented internally as the number of seconds since the
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1st of January 1970 (the Unix "epoch"). Currently, that figure is stored
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as a 32 bit integer, and will run out part way through 2038. By then we
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should (hopefully) be using a counter of 64 bits (or greater) which
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should be good until the end of the universe.</p>
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<p>Note that the OS being Y2K compliant will not fix errant
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applications that are not Y2K compliant.</p>
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<p>Note also that the OS expects to read the current date and time from
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the CMOS clock of your computer. Not all of these devices correctly
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handle the year 2000. You are advised to test each platform individually
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to ensure that your hardware clock behaves correctly when going from
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1999 to 2000, and that it correctly interprets the year 2000 as a leap
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year.</p>
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<h2>What you can do</h2>
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<p>FreeBSD will continue to properly maintain time well into the
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next century. Third party applications, however, might not.
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Your best defense against year 2000 issues is a good
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offense. Listening to stories claiming the coming meltdown of
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the world as we know it are <strong>not</strong> the way to
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solve the millenium bug. Nor is waiting until the last
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minute. The FreeBSD Project recommends that your organization
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apply sound system administration principles as the millenium
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approaches.</p>
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<p>There are tests that you can perform to see how your system will
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respond. Set your clock to a few minutes before midnight on New
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Year's Eve and watch the system time. Your system should display
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the year as 2000 and not 1900. If the year is displayed
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incorrectly, then you will have plenty of time to update your
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hardware. Operating your organizations information systems under
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their normal daily load with the clock set forward can provide
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valuable insight into your vulnerablility to year 2000 issues.</p>
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<h2>FreeBSD Year 2000 Statement</h2>
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<blockquote>
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<p>
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"After extensive analysis and testing, we believe that FreeBSD is 100% Y2K
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compliant. In the unlikely event that something has been overlooked, we
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will do our best to fix it as soon as possible."
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</p>
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<p align="right">David Greenman<br>Principal Architect, The
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FreeBSD project</p>
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</blockquote>
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<h2>Fixed problems</h2>
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<p>The following Y2K problems have been identified and fixed in
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FreeBSD.</p>
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<dl>
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<dt><a
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href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=1380">misc/1380</a></dt>
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<dd>Several programs have a hardcoded 19%d in responses for the year.
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Affected programs include: yacc, ftpd, and make.</dd>
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<dt><a
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href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=1382">conf/1382</a></dt>
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<dd>The sed script in /etc/rc.local that builds the host/kernel ID line
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for the message of the day relies on the year not going past
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1999.</dd>
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<dt><a
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href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=3465">misc/3465</a></dt>
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<dd>The etc/namedb/make-localhost command generates the DNS serial
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number as YYMMDD. In the year 2000, this will be generated as
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1YYMMDD.</dd>
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<dt><a
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href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=4930">gnu/4930</a> and
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<a href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=8321">gnu/8321</a></dt>
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<dd>groff tmac macros have hardcoded 19 for generating some dates.</dd>
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</dl>
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<h2>Problematic applications</h2>
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<dl>
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<dt><a
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href="http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=7681">ports/7681</a></dt>
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<dd>TkDesk 1.0 uses a hardcoded 19 in the file listing window. A
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file with a date > 2000 is displayed with a year looking like
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"191xx" where xx is the last two numbers of the real date. This
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bug has been fixed in version 1.1.</dd>
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</dl>
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<h2>More information</h2>
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<p>If you have further questions about FreeBSD's year 2000 compliance, or
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you have discovered an application running under FreeBSD that is not Y2K
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compliant, please contact the project at <a
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href="mailto:freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG">freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG</a>.</p>
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&footer;
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</body>
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</html>
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