OTA is just my shorthand for “over the air,” by which I mean not included as part of an OS software update. It’s not an official name or anything. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. Here is the support page on this mechanism: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206986 And here is the support page on background updates: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207005 Deborah
On Feb 13, 2021, at 8:55 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
scs@eskimo.com (Steve Summit) writes:
What's fascinating to me is that they are there at all. I'm a foot-dragging Luddite who rarely accepts any of the upgrades that vendors push at me -- and yet now that I look, I've got those same three fresh tz trees sitting there on my Mac, too, one from as recently as three weeks ago.
Did everybody else know this? Apologies for making a big deal out of it if everybody else already knew this. Evidently OTA is chugging away there quietly in the background, upgrading tzdata completely transparently.
If you look in System Preferences -> Software Update -> Advanced, you'll find a checkbox "Install system data files and security updates", which is generally on even if you don't have automatic software update enabled. I believe that's what authorizes auto-installation of tzdata updates, along with lists of trusted website root certificates, CRLs, antivirus patterns, and the like.
Anybody know if there's a connection between OTA's tzdata distribution mechanism, and TZDIST? I'm guessing not. (But now I'm wondering if the reason I haven't heard much about TZDIST lately is that OTA has rendered it obsolete, or something.)
I'm pretty certain Deborah is just referring to Apple's proprietary software update channel.
regards, tom lane