Debian Templates: /etc/timezone being kept reset to UTC

[adrelanos]

cat /etc/timezone:

UTC

cat /etc/qubes/protected-files.d/persist:

/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/hostname
/etc/hosts
/etc/localtime
/etc/timezone

Whenever I set it to Etc/UTC or something arbitrary, its being reset to UTC. It's not the /usr/lib/qubes/init/qubes-sysinit.sh script. I debugged that. [Checked it honors protected-files.d, yes, commented out the timezone modifying code.]

What else could keep setting it to UTC?

Maybe UTC is good enough for Whonix. Dunno if Etc/UTC would make a difference. Anyhow. Finding out why would be important in order to understand things.

[qubesuser]

Isn't the proper solution to fix Qubes to optionally not provide the configured timezone to select or all VMs?

Otherwise an exploited Whonix Workstation can access it anyway with qubesdb-read /qubes-timezone, while once that is fixed, setting the correct UTC timezone becomes automatic.

[qubesuser]

Isn't the proper solution to fix Qubes to optionally not provide the configured timezone to select or all VMs?

Otherwise an exploited Whonix Workstation can access it anyway with qubesdb-read /qubes-timezone, while once that is fixed, setting the correct UTC timezone becomes automatic.

[adrelanos]

Yes, but this is a separate issue.

[adrelanos]

Yes, but this is a separate issue.

[marmarek]

Maybe some other startup service? I see systemd-timesynced.service is
started for example, it claims to have even NTP enabled...
Or something calls timedatectl (->systemd-timedated.service), some
application from /etc/xdg/autostart or so.

BTW I've found something strange - /etc is owned by user:user. Does it
happen only to me?

Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

[marmarek]

Maybe some other startup service? I see systemd-timesynced.service is
started for example, it claims to have even NTP enabled...
Or something calls timedatectl (->systemd-timedated.service), some
application from /etc/xdg/autostart or so.

BTW I've found something strange - /etc is owned by user:user. Does it
happen only to me?

Best Regards,
Marek Marczykowski-Górecki
Invisible Things Lab
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

[unman]

@adrelanos
How are you setting the timezone? With dpkg-reconfigure tzdata?
It isnt clear to me when it's being reset for you - after every reboot?
I should say that I don't see this behaviour at all.

[unman]

@adrelanos
How are you setting the timezone? With dpkg-reconfigure tzdata?
It isnt clear to me when it's being reset for you - after every reboot?
I should say that I don't see this behaviour at all.

[adrelanos]

systemd-timedated.service was already disabled. (sudo timedatectl set-ntp 0)

BTW I've found something strange - /etc is owned by user:user. Does it happen only to me?

My Whonix 11 template's /etc is also owned by user. Very strange. @nrgaway any idea?

How are you setting the timezone? With dpkg-reconfigure tzdata?

Yes, for example. But also when I manually edit some extra "xyz" or so it will be lost after reboot.

It isnt clear to me when it's being reset for you - after every reboot?

After every reboot. Otherwise it's unchanged. Whonix 11 templates. I even tried auditd to no avail.

[adrelanos]

systemd-timedated.service was already disabled. (sudo timedatectl set-ntp 0)

BTW I've found something strange - /etc is owned by user:user. Does it happen only to me?

My Whonix 11 template's /etc is also owned by user. Very strange. @nrgaway any idea?

How are you setting the timezone? With dpkg-reconfigure tzdata?

Yes, for example. But also when I manually edit some extra "xyz" or so it will be lost after reboot.

It isnt clear to me when it's being reset for you - after every reboot?

After every reboot. Otherwise it's unchanged. Whonix 11 templates. I even tried auditd to no avail.

[unman]

I don't see this behaviour in the debian templates.
Unless others do - best to ask on the ml? - that would suggest that it is a whonix issue.

[unman]

I don't see this behaviour in the debian templates.
Unless others do - best to ask on the ml? - that would suggest that it is a whonix issue.

[marmarek]

Just checked on whonix-gw based ProxyVM:

user@host:~$ timedatectl status
      Local time: Tue 2015-09-01 22:55:30 UTC
  Universal time: Tue 2015-09-01 22:55:30 UTC
        RTC time: n/a
       Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
     NTP enabled: yes
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: n/a

So probably that timedatectl set-ntp 0 doesn't work as expected or isn't executed at all.
Anyway this service can be responsible for resetting /etc/timezone (based on /etc/localtime? just guessing)

[marmarek]

Just checked on whonix-gw based ProxyVM:

user@host:~$ timedatectl status
      Local time: Tue 2015-09-01 22:55:30 UTC
  Universal time: Tue 2015-09-01 22:55:30 UTC
        RTC time: n/a
       Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
     NTP enabled: yes
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: n/a

So probably that timedatectl set-ntp 0 doesn't work as expected or isn't executed at all.
Anyway this service can be responsible for resetting /etc/timezone (based on /etc/localtime? just guessing)

[adrelanos]

timedatectl set-ntp 1 creates /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants/systemd-timesyncd.service and timedatectl set-ntp 0 deletes it. (sudo service systemd-timesyncd status confirms it's disabled.)

That service is already disabled in my development whonix-gw based ProxyVM.

After sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata to something else, which works, both /etc/timezone (reset to UTC) and /etc/localtime (reset to copy of /usr/share/zoneinfo) is reset after reboot.

[adrelanos]

timedatectl set-ntp 1 creates /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants/systemd-timesyncd.service and timedatectl set-ntp 0 deletes it. (sudo service systemd-timesyncd status confirms it's disabled.)

That service is already disabled in my development whonix-gw based ProxyVM.

After sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata to something else, which works, both /etc/timezone (reset to UTC) and /etc/localtime (reset to copy of /usr/share/zoneinfo) is reset after reboot.

[adrelanos]

This issue is exclusive to Qubes-Whonix only, which is very strange.

[adrelanos]

This issue is exclusive to Qubes-Whonix only, which is very strange.

[adrelanos]

Fixed in the development version of Qubes-Whonix.
Even though I am sure I had the qubes-whonix postinst script disabled, it seems to no longer happen since:
Whonix/qubes-whonix@d11e428

[adrelanos]

Fixed in the development version of Qubes-Whonix.
Even though I am sure I had the qubes-whonix postinst script disabled, it seems to no longer happen since:
Whonix/qubes-whonix@d11e428