From what I recall, I thought we did use the TZ of the server as the reference for datetime in reports and all other views.

Perhaps this has regressed at some point but the datetime fields in the admin should always use the TZ of the server

@satkunas, can you take a look at this?

The date/time shown in the UI is indifferent to the client timezone. Only the servers timezone is used.

Furthermore, the timezone changes are not propagated until the database is restarted:

# date +"%Z %z"
UTC +0000

# mysql -e "SELECT @@system_time_zone";
+--------------------+
| @@system_time_zone |
+--------------------+
| UTC                |
+--------------------+

# date +"%Z %z"
EDT -0400

# mysql -e "SELECT @@system_time_zone";
+--------------------+
| @@system_time_zone |
+--------------------+
| UTC                |
+--------------------+

# /usr/local/pf/bin/pfcmd generatemariadbconfig
# systemctl restart packetfence-mariadb
# mysql -e "SELECT @@system_time_zone";
+--------------------+
| @@system_time_zone |
+--------------------+
| EDT                |
+--------------------+

@satkunas and @julsemaan

I needed some time to understand your answer and how this reflects to what I am trying to explain. But I am there now, based on that I do think we have a GUI bug.

Let's start with where my browser thinks it is (GMT)

Goto in PF | Reports | Accounting | Node

You will see that the Initial populated times are as you stated in the server TZ. In our case GMT+1

If I now press the Clock and Select an offered quick pick time range for example 30mins

You will see that the GUI stops using the server TZ but sets up the data range based on my local TZ GMT

Based on what I understood from the explanation above the GUI should have created the quick pick selection using the PF servers TZ (GMT+1)

I hope that helps to understand if this is a bug or a by design

Simon

Preloaded dates in the date/time fields are set using the server's TZ.

Manually chosen dates are set using the users' TZ.

When PacketFence OS's timezone and the UI user OS's timezone differ there is a discrepancy for the user. This discrepancy causes confusion, especially when tailing reports. Currently the user must think in terms of the servers' TZ, rather than using their local TZ.

This is not a bug.

As a feature we could either:
a) Display all date/time fields in the local user's TZ, and include TZ w/ date/time formatting.
b) add TZ selection in search criteria, with default choice set to servers' TZ.

This is not a bug.

I'll have to disagree with this since in prior versions of PacketFence, the admin interface was consistent for the TZ and consistently used the TZ of the server for reports and views. So that means it's a regression from a previous release, not a new ask

@satkunas will assess how large the fix will be