Sophos Scan Logs Time Discrepency

[1DMF]

Hi,

We have a weird time discrepency between Scan Schedule / Run time and the time shown in the log file.

I have spoke with Sophos and they have tried to expalin it away by the server having the Day Light Savings (DLS) box ticked and so Sophos runs by GMT even though we are on BST.

I don't understand this , the time is the time, when DLS is applied surely it physically changes the system time not applies some math to GMT or other manipulation of the displayed time.

If I take the tick out of the DLS box, the displayed system tray time doesn't change, the time stays the same BST.

With the DLS box unticked the Sophos Scan log times match the scheduled and run times.

This is how Sophos explains it..

It's not specific to 2003 SBS as I have a 2003 enterprise box here which exhibits the same behaviour, as do my XP Pro and Server 2008 machines.

It is perfectly normal behaviour as the times are taken from the system time rather than what is displayed on the clock.

I have done some further testing on this and have found that the scans that you schedule will still run at the time you want them to, that is if you schedule a scan for 17.30 it will run when the clock shows 17.30 even though you will see it in the log as starting at 16.30 so it makes no actual functioning of the scheduling, you will just see the scan times as different in the logs as the log is written to by the driver, which is only aware of the system time, not any daylight savings settings that may be set using the clock application.

I hope this clears up the issue for you.

Well can someone make sense of this, they seem to indicate that BST is simply a display time adjustment vs a real system time adjustment.

I don't get it, we are not in the timezone GMT+1 , we are in the timezone BST.

How does the system time work?

Sorry if this is not the right forum, but it is all related to my virus software, I'm not getting this issue with anything else we run on the server! (well that i've noticed anyhow)


"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[2ffat]

It looks like a bug in their report system. If I understand correctly, the scan starts at the correct time but the report doesn't take into account daylight savings time. It looks at the GMT and time zone differential to get it's time. It's odd that the report wouldn't use the system time but it may be a function of the report writer program.



James P. Cottingham
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