Subj : Re: tzdata question
To   : Mike Powell
From : Wilfred van Velzen
Date : Tue Apr 01 2025 09:54 pm

Hi Mike,

On 2025-04-01 14:36:39, you wrote to All:

MP> I am running debian.  Sometime in the past month, when I received a
MP> kernel upgrade and also a tzdata upgrade, I noticed that the time was
MP> wrong on my system.

MP> Today, I saw (apt list --upgradable) that another tzdata update was coming.
MP> Before I ran apt upgrade, I checked the following:

MP> /etc/localtime -> pointed as shortcut to correct timezone
MP> /etc/timezone -> contained the correct timezone

MP> I watched the apt upgrade run.  When it came time for tzdata to
MP> reconfigure, it said:

MP> Current default time zone: 'America/Indiana/Indianapolis'

MP> Which is wrong.

MP> /etc/localtime and /etc/timezone were both now pointed to Indianapolis, which
MP> is wrong and not what they said right before the upgrade.

MP> So I ran dpkg-reconfigure and got it fixed again.

MP> Out of curiousity, I also ran dkpg-reconfigure and then selected "cancel"
MP> without making any choices.  Guess what?  tzdata set me back to
MP> "Indianapolis"!

MP> This is happening on every debian/devuan/raspbian system that I have, and it
MP> started happening sometime during the past month or six weeks after I received
MP> a kernel/tzdata update.

MP> I thought the time zone was saved in the two above places in /etc.  Is there
MP> some other place that tzdata is reading from that I need to look at so that,
MP> in future, whenever tzdata gets updated I don't have to remember to go back
MP> and manually fix the time zone each time?

On Ubuntu I've only once set /etc/localtime to symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam (in my case). As described in 'man 5 localtime'. I've never touched or editted /etc/timezone. That might be set automatically (on boot, but I don't really know), from where /etc/localtime links to...

This is on multiple servers, that have been running for years, and are kept up to date regularly.


Bye, Wilfred.

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