tzdata for Egypt are incorrect

[psl]

Ubuntu 8.04.4, i386
tzdata 2011g

# dpkg -s tzdata | grep Ver
Version: 2011g~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04

Timezone for Egypt (Cairo) is set to GMT. I think this is not correct and should be +7200 (no DST). Notice gmtoff in the following list:

# zdump -v /usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt | tail -6
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 21:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 9 23:59:59 2010 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 22:00:00 2010 UTC = Fri Sep 10 01:00:00 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 20:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 23:59:59 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 21:00:00 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 21:00:00 2010 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0

BTW, I thing this issue is an evidence that Ubuntu is not used in Egypt...

[أحمد المحمودي (Ahmed El-Mahmoudy) (aelmahmoudy)]

I am from Egypt, and using Ubuntu. But I am using Natty.

You seem to be using a very old version of Ubuntu (8.04)

[أحمد المحمودي (Ahmed El-Mahmoudy) (aelmahmoudy)]

I forgot to mention, that the time is correct here.

[psl (slansky)]

Ubuntu 11.04, i386
tzdata 2011g

$ dpkg -s tzdata | grep Ver
Version: 2011g-0ubuntu0.11.04

$ zdump -v /usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt | tail -6
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 21:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 9 23:59:59 2010 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 22:00:00 2010 UTC = Fri Sep 10 01:00:00 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 20:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 23:59:59 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 21:00:00 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 23:00:00 2010 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Mon Jan 18 05:14:07 2038 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Tue Jan 19 05:14:07 2038 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200

OK, I checked Ubuntu versions 10.10 and 11.04 and these are OK as listed in zdump output.

Ubuntu 08.10.4 is still supported version, it is LTS. In will be supported for more than a year at server (and tzdata package is part of server install). I wonder why tzdata 2011g package is different in 8.04 from later versions of Ubuntu. That surprises me...

[psl (slansky)]

I am sorry, I mix 8.04 and 8.10 version. I have 8.04 at my server, it is LTS version and the problem I reported is at 8.04. When I notice 8.10, it is my typo and should be 8.04.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

[Gary Lasker (gary-lasker)]

Hi psl, I have verified that what you report in the bug description is indeed the case in 8.04 LTS, as shown:

$ dpkg -s tzdata | grep Ver
Version: 2011g~repack-0ubuntu0.8.04

$ zdump -v /usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt | tail -6
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 21:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 9 23:59:59 2010 EET isdst=0 gmtoff=7200
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 9 22:00:00 2010 UTC = Fri Sep 10 01:00:00 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 20:59:59 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 23:59:59 2010 EEST isdst=1 gmtoff=10800
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Thu Sep 30 21:00:00 2010 UTC = Thu Sep 30 21:00:00 2010 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Mon Jan 18 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0
/usr/share/zoneinfo/Egypt Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC = Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 UTC isdst=0 gmtoff=0

And I also can see that this is not the case for e.g. Natty, as you reported.

All of the updates for 2011g are based on the same upstream tarball, so at the moment I am not sure why there is this discrepancy for the Hardy version only. I will set the bug to confirmed and we will investigate this.

Thank you for reporting this, your help is very much appreciated!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I've seen similar cases which trigger this bug with some glibc versions when there was a DST rule with an open end. In these updates it helped to set an arbitrary end date of the DST rule, such as for the year 2038. Please see bug 572103 for details.

[Mohammad AbuShady (coalwater)]

This bug appears on my 10.04 ubuntu server vps, but doesn't exist on my debian sid laptop

[Yaron (sh-yaron)]

Have you tried updating the package from Debian unstable?