Should MySQL have its timezone set to UTC?

Question

It seems that it does not matter what timezone is on the server as long as you have the time set right for the current timezone, know the timezone of the datetime columns that you store, and are aware of the issues with daylight savings time.

On the other hand if you have control of the timezones of the servers you work with then you can have everything set to UTC internally and never worry about timezones and DST, at least when it comes to storing internal time.

Here are some notes I collected of how to work with timezones as a form of cheatsheet for myself and others which might influence what timezone the person will choose for his/her server and how he/she will store date and time.

MySQL Timezone Cheatsheet

Notes:

1. Changing the timezone will not change the stored datetime or timestamp, but it will select a different datetime from timestamp columns

2. Warning! UTC has leap seconds, these look like '2012-06-30 23:59:60' and can be added randomly, with 6 months prior notice, due to the slowing of the earths rotation

3. GMT confuses seconds, which is why UTC was invented.

4. Warning! different regional timezones might produce the same datetime value due to daylight savings time

5. The timestamp column only supports dates 1970-01-01 00:00:01 to 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC, due to a limitation.

6. Internally a MySQL timestamp column is stored as UTC but when selecting a date MySQL will automatically convert it to the current session timezone.

   When storing a date in a timestamp, MySQL will assume that the date is in the current session timezone and convert it to UTC for storage.

7. MySQL can store partial dates in datetime columns, these look like "2013-00-00 04:00:00"

8. MySQL stores "0000-00-00 00:00:00" if you set a datetime column as NULL, unless you specifically set the column to allow null when you create it.

9. Read this

To select a timestamp column in UTC format

no matter what timezone the current MySQL session is in:

SELECT 
CONVERT_TZ(`timestamp_field`, @@session.time_zone, '+00:00') AS `utc_datetime` 
FROM `table_name`

You can also set the sever or global or current session timezone to UTC and then select the timestamp like so:

SELECT `timestamp_field` FROM `table_name`

To select the current datetime in UTC:

SELECT UTC_TIMESTAMP();
SELECT UTC_TIMESTAMP;
SELECT CONVERT_TZ(NOW(), @@session.time_zone, '+00:00');

Example result: 2015-03-24 17:02:41

To select the current datetime in the session timezone

SELECT NOW();
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP();

To select the timezone that was set when the server launched

SELECT @@system_time_zone;

Returns "MSK" or "+04:00" for Moscow time for example, there is (or was) a MySQL bug where if set to a numerical offset it would not adjust the Daylight savings time

To get the current timezone

SELECT TIMEDIFF(NOW(), UTC_TIMESTAMP);

It will return 02:00:00 if your timezone is +2:00.

To get the current UNIX timestamp (in seconds):

SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW());
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP();

To get the timestamp column as a UNIX timestamp

SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(`timestamp`) FROM `table_name`

To get a UTC datetime column as a UNIX timestamp

SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CONVERT_TZ(`utc_datetime`, '+00:00', @@session.time_zone)) FROM `table_name`

Get a current timezone datetime from a positive UNIX timestamp integer

SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(`unix_timestamp_int`) FROM `table_name`

Get a UTC datetime from a UNIX timestamp

SELECT CONVERT_TZ(FROM_UNIXTIME(`unix_timestamp_int`), @@session.time_zone, '+00:00') 
FROM `table_name`

Get a current timezone datetime from a negative UNIX timestamp integer

SELECT DATE_ADD('1970-01-01 00:00:00',INTERVAL -957632400 SECOND) 

There are 3 places where the timezone might be set in MySQL:

Note: A timezone can be set in 2 formats:

1. an offset from UTC: '+00:00', '+10:00' or '-6:00'
2. as a named time zone: '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.

in the file "my.cnf"

default_time_zone='+00:00'

or

timezone='UTC'

@@global.time_zone variable

To see what value they are set to

SELECT @@global.time_zone;

To set a value for it use either one:

SET GLOBAL time_zone = '+8:00';
SET GLOBAL time_zone = 'Europe/Helsinki';
SET @@global.time_zone='+00:00';

@@session.time_zone variable

SELECT @@session.time_zone;

To set it use either one:

SET time_zone = 'Europe/Helsinki';
SET time_zone = "+00:00";
SET @@session.time_zone = "+00:00";

both "@@global.time_zone variable" and "@@session.time_zone variable" might return "SYSTEM" which means that they use the timezone set in "my.cnf".

For timezone names to work (even for default-time-zone) you must setup your timezone information tables need to be populated: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/time-zone-support.html

Note: you can not do this as it will return NULL:

SELECT 
CONVERT_TZ(`timestamp_field`, TIMEDIFF(NOW(), UTC_TIMESTAMP), '+00:00') AS `utc_datetime` 
FROM `table_name`

Setup mysql timezone tables

For CONVERT_TZ to work, you need the timezone tables to be populated

SELECT * FROM mysql.`time_zone` ;
SELECT * FROM mysql.`time_zone_leap_second` ;
SELECT * FROM mysql.`time_zone_name` ;
SELECT * FROM mysql.`time_zone_transition` ;
SELECT * FROM mysql.`time_zone_transition_type` ;

If they are empty, then fill them up by running this command

mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root -p mysql

if this command gives you the error "data too long for column 'abbreviation' at row 1", then it might be caused by a NULL character being appended at the end of the timezone abbreviation

the fix being to run this

mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -u root -p mysql
(if the above gives error "data too long for column 'abbreviation' at row 1")
mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo > /tmp/zut.sql

echo "SET SESSION SQL_MODE = '';" > /tmp/mysql_tzinfo_to.sql
cat /tmp/zut.sql >> /tmp/mysql_tzinfo_to.sql

mysql --defaults-file=/etc/mysql/my.cnf --user=verifiedscratch -p mysql < /tmp/mysql_tzinfo_to.sql

(make sure your servers dst rules are up to date zdump -v Europe/Moscow | grep 2011 https://chrisjean.com/updating-daylight-saving-time-on-linux/)

See the full DST (Daylight Saving Time) transition history for every timezone

SELECT 
tzn.Name AS tz_name,
tztt.Abbreviation AS tz_abbr,
tztt.Is_DST AS is_dst,
tztt.`Offset` AS `offset`,
DATE_ADD('1970-01-01 00:00:00',INTERVAL tzt.Transition_time SECOND)  AS transition_date
FROM mysql.`time_zone_transition` tzt
INNER JOIN mysql.`time_zone_transition_type` tztt USING(Time_zone_id, Transition_type_id)
INNER JOIN mysql.`time_zone_name` tzn USING(Time_zone_id)
-- WHERE tzn.Name LIKE 'Europe/Moscow' -- Moscow has weird DST changes
ORDER BY tzt.Transition_time ASC

CONVERT_TZ also applies any necessary DST changes based on the rules in the above tables and the date that you use.

Note:
According to the docs, the value you set for time_zone does not change, if you set it as "+01:00" for example, then the time_zone will be set as an offset from UTC, which does not follow DST, so it will stay the same all year round.

Only the named timezones will change time during daylight savings time.

Abbreviations like CET will always be a winter time and CEST will be summer time while +01:00 will always be UTC time + 1 hour and both won't change with DST.

The system timezone will be the timezone of the host machine where mysql is installed (unless mysql fails to determine it)

You can read more about working with DST here

When not to use UTC by the legendary Jon Skeet: https://codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2019/03/27/storing-utc-is-not-a-silver-bullet/ (For example a scheduled event in the future that represents a time, not an instant in time)

related questions:

• How do I set the time zone of MySQL?
• MySql - SELECT TimeStamp Column in UTC format
• How to get Unix timestamp in MySQL from UTC time?
• Converting Server MySQL TimeStamp To UTC
• https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/20217/mysql-set-utc-time-as-default-timestamp
• How do I get the current time zone of MySQL?
• MySQL datetime fields and daylight savings time -- how do I reference the "extra" hour?
• Converting negative values from FROM_UNIXTIME

Sources:

• https://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=68861
• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-functions.html
• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/datetime.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time
• http://shafiqissani.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/how-to-get-the-current-epoch-time-unix-timestamp/
• https://web.ivy.net/~carton/rant/MySQL-timezones.txt

PHP and MySQL have their own default timezone configurations. You should synchronize time between your data base and web application, otherwise you could run some issues.

Read this tutorial: How To Synchronize Your PHP and MySQL Timezones

This is a working example:

jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/database?useUnicode=yes&characterEncoding=UTF-8&serverTimezone=Europe/Moscow

The pros and cons are pretty much identical.It depends on whether you want this or not.

Be careful, if MySQL timezone differs from your system time (for instance PHP), comparing the time or printing to the user will involve some tinkering.

How about making your app agnostic of the server's timezone?

Owing to any of these possible scenarios:

• You might not have control over the web/database server's timezone settings
• You might mess up and set the settings incorrectly
• There are so many settings as described in the other answers, and so many things to keep track of, that you might miss something
• An update on the server, or a software reset, or another admin, might unknowing reset the servers' timezone to the default - thus breaking your application

All of the above scenarios give rise to breaking of your application's time calculations. Thus it appears that the better approach is to make your application work independent of the server's timezone.

The idea is simply to always create dates in UTC before storing them into the database, and always re-create them from the stored values in UTC as well. This way, the time calculations won't ever be incorrect, because they're always in UTC. This can be achieved by explicity stating the DateTimeZone parameter when creating a PHP DateTime object.

On the other hand, the client side functionality can be configured to convert all dates/times received from the server to the client's timezone. Libraries like moment.js make this super easy to do.

For example, when storing a date in the database, instead of using the NOW() function of MySQL, create the timestamp string in UTC as follows:

// Storing dates
$date = new DateTime('now', new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
$sql = 'insert into table_name (date_column) values ("' . $date . '")';

// Retreiving dates
$sql = 'select date_column from table_name where condition';
$dateInUTC = new DateTime($date_string_from_db, new DateTimeZone('UTC'));

You can set the default timezone in PHP for all dates created, thus eliminating the need to initialize the DateTimeZone class every time you want to create a date.