ltsp-build-client fails when /etc/localtime is a symlink to UTC

[Eddy G]

This was observed in Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS:

When /etc/localtime is a symlink to UTC (the Ubuntu default), ltsp-build-client fails:

    cp: '/etc/localtime' and '/opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/localtime' are the same file
    error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally

Looking at the files:

    server2:~$ ls -l /etc/localtime /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/localtime
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 23 23:23 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Jan 30 15:23 /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC

This is coming from 035-copy-timezone:

        if [ -f /etc/timezone ]; then
            cp /etc/timezone $ROOT/etc/timezone
            cp /etc/localtime $ROOT/etc/localtime
        fi

And in the case when /etc/localtime is a different symlink (that is, not to the Ubuntu default of UTC and the 'cp' doesn't fail), the above code messes up the *actual* UTC/GMT/Zulu timezone files (which are all symlinked to each other) in /usr/share/zoneinfo by copying the system timezone to it:

    server1:~$ ls -lL /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3545 Oct 21 07:42 /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3545 Oct 21 07:42 /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC

[Matthew Braun (powerplug)]

Also related to the above bug is this code for LTSP clients (pkg ltsp-client-core) which also blindly copies to /etc/localtime:

/usr/share/ltsp/init-ltsp.d/50-set-time

if [ -n "$TIMEZONE" ] && [ -e "/usr/share/zoneinfo/$TIMEZONE" ]; then
    cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TIMEZONE /etc/localtime 2>/dev/null
fi

I think both the LTSP build and client code should be changed to create a symlink (after first checking it isn't already a symlink pointing to the correct file).

[Michael Knichel (m-knichel)]

I am experiencing similar behavior...
$ ls -l /etc/timezone
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17 Nov 13 13:34 /etc/timezone
$ ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Nov 13 13:34 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York
$ ls -l /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/timezone
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17 Nov 17 14:00 /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/timezone
$ ls -l /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Feb 6 2017 /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC

======= /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/amd64/lts.conf
[example]
key=value

[default]
SCREEN_02=shell
SCREEN_07=ldm
LDM_THEME = ltsp.AIT
FAT_RAM_THRESHOLD=3000
TIMEZONE=America/New_York
RCFILE_01="mkdir -p /media/local_disk && mount /dev/sda1 /media/local_disk"

======= ltsp-info
$ ltsp-info
server information:
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial

server packages:
ii ldm-server 2:2.2.18-1
un ltsp-client <none>
un ltsp-client-core <none>
ii ltsp-docs 1.2-1
ii ltsp-server 5.5.7-1
ii ltsp-server-standalone 5.5.7-1
un ltsp-utils <none>
ii ltspfs 1.4-2

packages in chroot: /opt/ltsp/amd64
ii ldm 2:2.2.18-1
ii ldm-edubuntu-theme 2:2.0.47
un ldm-themes <none>
un ldm-ubuntu-themes <none>
ii ltsp-client 5.5.7-1
ii ltsp-client-core 5.5.7-1
ii ltspfsd 1.4-2
ii ltspfsd-core 1.4-2

found: /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/lts.conf

found: /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/amd64/lts.conf

found image: /opt/ltsp/images/amd64.img

======= /etc/timezone
$ more /etc/timezone
America/New_York

======= /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/timezone
$ more /opt/ltsp/amd64/etc/timezone
America/New_York

[Vagrant Cascadian (vagrantc)]

Fixes for issues mentioned in this bug were committed to git:

https://git.launchpad.net/ltsp/commit/?id=58ea7fb8506792000e0bb2d2915ff58d5a0da053

https://git.launchpad.net/ltsp/commit/?id=f209df0fcf7d510e48a2efe3150ab86526f858f1

[Vagrant Cascadian (vagrantc)]

fixed in 5.5.10