MySQL Server maintains several time zone settings:
The system time zone. When the server starts, it attempts to
determine the time zone of the host machine and uses it to set
the system_time_zone system
variable. The value does not change thereafter.
You can set the system time zone for MySQL Server at startup
with the
--timezone=
option to mysqld_safe. You can also set it
by setting the timezone_nameTZ environment variable
before you start mysqld. The permissible
values for --timezone or
TZ are system dependent. Consult your
operating system documentation to see what values are
acceptable.
The server's current time zone. The global
time_zone system variable
indicates the time zone the server currently is operating in.
The initial value for
time_zone is
'SYSTEM', which indicates that the server
time zone is the same as the system time zone.
The initial global server time zone value can be specified
explicitly at startup with the
--default-time-zone=
option on the command line, or you can use the following line
in an option file:
timezone
default-time-zone='timezone'
If you have the SUPER
privilege, you can set the global server time zone value at
runtime with this statement:
mysql> SET GLOBAL time_zone = timezone;
Per-connection time zones. Each client that connects has its
own time zone setting, given by the session
time_zone variable.
Initially, the session variable takes its value from the
global time_zone variable,
but the client can change its own time zone with this
statement:
mysql> SET time_zone = timezone;
The current session time zone setting affects display and storage
of time values that are zone-sensitive. This includes the values
displayed by functions such as
NOW() or
CURTIME(), and values stored in and
retrieved from TIMESTAMP columns.
Values for TIMESTAMP columns are
converted from the current time zone to UTC for storage, and from
UTC to the current time zone for retrieval.
The current time zone setting does not affect values displayed by
functions such as UTC_TIMESTAMP()
or values in DATE,
TIME, or
DATETIME columns. Nor are values in
those data types stored in UTC; the time zone applies for them
only when converting from TIMESTAMP values. If
you want locale-specific arithmetic for
DATE,
TIME, or
DATETIME values, convert them to
UTC, perform the arithmetic, and then convert back.
The current values of the global and client-specific time zones can be retrieved like this:
mysql> SELECT @@global.time_zone, @@session.time_zone;
timezone values can be given in several
formats, none of which are case sensitive:
The value 'SYSTEM' indicates that the time
zone should be the same as the system time zone.
The value can be given as a string indicating an offset from
UTC, such as '+10:00' or
'-6:00'.
The value can be given as a named time zone, such as
'Europe/Helsinki',
'US/Eastern', or 'MET'.
Named time zones can be used only if the time zone information
tables in the mysql database have been
created and populated.
Several tables in the mysql system database
exist to maintain time zone information (see
Section 5.3, “The mysql System Database”). The MySQL installation
procedure creates the time zone tables, but does not load them.
You must do so manually using the following instructions.
Loading the time zone information is not necessarily a one-time operation because the information changes occasionally. When such changes occur, applications that use the old rules become out of date and you may find it necessary to reload the time zone tables to keep the information used by your MySQL server current. See the notes at the end of this section.
If your system has its own
zoneinfo database (the set
of files describing time zones), you should use the
mysql_tzinfo_to_sql program for filling the
time zone tables. Examples of such systems are Linux, FreeBSD,
Solaris, and OS X. One likely location for these files is the
/usr/share/zoneinfo directory. If your system
does not have a zoneinfo database, you can use the downloadable
package described later in this section.
The mysql_tzinfo_to_sql program is used to load the time zone tables. On the command line, pass the zoneinfo directory path name to mysql_tzinfo_to_sql and send the output into the mysql program. For example:
shell> mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root mysql
mysql_tzinfo_to_sql reads your system's time zone files and generates SQL statements from them. mysql processes those statements to load the time zone tables.
mysql_tzinfo_to_sql also can be used to load a single time zone file or to generate leap second information:
To load a single time zone file
tz_file that corresponds to a time
zone name tz_name, invoke
mysql_tzinfo_to_sql like this:
shell> mysql_tzinfo_to_sql tz_file tz_name | mysql -u root mysql
With this approach, you must execute a separate command to load the time zone file for each named zone that the server needs to know about.
If your time zone needs to account for leap seconds,
initialize the leap second information like this, where
tz_file is the name of your time
zone file:
shell> mysql_tzinfo_to_sql --leap tz_file | mysql -u root mysql
After running mysql_tzinfo_to_sql, it is best to restart the server so that it does not continue to use any previously cached time zone data.
If your system is one that has no zoneinfo database (for example, Windows), you can use a package that is available for download at the MySQL Developer Zone:
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/timezones.html
You can use either a package that contains SQL statements to
populate your existing time zone tables, or a package that
contains pre-built MyISAM time zone tables to
replace your existing tables:
To use a time zone package that contains SQL statements, download and unpack it, then load the package file contents into your existing time zone tables:
shell> mysql -u root mysql < file_name
Then restart the server.
To use a time zone package that contains
.frm, .MYD, and
.MYI files for the
MyISAM time zone tables, download and
unpack it. These table files are part of the
mysql database, so you should place the
files in the mysql subdirectory of your
MySQL server's data directory. Stop the server before doing
this and restart it afterward.
Do not use a downloadable package if your system has a zoneinfo database. Use the mysql_tzinfo_to_sql utility instead. Otherwise, you may cause a difference in datetime handling between MySQL and other applications on your system.
For information about time zone settings in replication setup, please see Section 17.4.1, “Replication Features and Issues”.