What timezone does MySQL's NOW() follow

Question

Does MySQL\'s NOW() follow the system\'s timezone or some standard like GMT or UTC?

Answer 1

It's in the current time zone. From the 5.1 docs:

Returns the current date and time as a value in 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' or YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.uuuuuu format, depending on whether the function is used in a string or numeric context. The value is expressed in the current time zone.

Now "the current time zone" can mean different things:

• The system time zone
• A time zone specified for the MySQL server in general
• A connection-specific time zone

More details are in the 5.1 time zone documentation.

(The 5.4 docs look the same for these bits. Obviously consult the docs for the version you're running for the best possible information.)