Change of behavior: "dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive" unconditionally overwrites /etc/timezone now
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
tzdata (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
In previous versions it was possible to set the system's timezone by editing /etc/timezone before running "dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata".
This behavior changed, /etc/timezone gets overwritten unconditionally during "dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata":
---
root@xenial:/# echo "Europe/Berlin" > /etc/timezone
root@xenial:/# cat /etc/timezone
Europe/Berlin
root@xenial:/# dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
Current default time zone: 'Etc/UTC'
Local time is now: Tue Mar 8 23:09:39 UTC 2016.
Universal Time is now: Tue Mar 8 23:09:39 UTC 2016.
root@xenial:/# cat /etc/timezone
Etc/UTC
---
As a workaround to programmatically set the timezone one now needs to point "/etc/localtime" to the new timezone:
---
root@xenial:/# ln -fs /usr/share/
root@xenial:/# ll /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Mar 9 00:48 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/
root@xenial:/# cat /etc/timezone
Etc/UTC
root@xenial:/# dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
Current default time zone: 'Europe/Berlin'
Local time is now: Wed Mar 9 00:49:05 CET 2016.
Universal Time is now: Tue Mar 8 23:49:05 UTC 2016.
root@xenial:/# cat /etc/timezone
Europe/Berlin
---
Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.