Wrong UTC zoneinfo in cloud-images

[ubuntu-server-builder]

This bug was originally filed in Launchpad as LP: #1543025

Launchpad details

affected_projects = ['cloud-init (Ubuntu)', 'cloud-init (Ubuntu Xenial)']
assignee = None
assignee_name = None
date_closed = 2017-03-30T21:26:07.772642+00:00
date_created = 2016-02-08T08:46:18.410930+00:00
date_fix_committed = 2017-03-30T21:26:07.772642+00:00
date_fix_released = 2017-03-30T21:26:07.772642+00:00
id = 1543025
importance = high
is_complete = True
lp_url = https://bugs.launchpad.net/cloud-init/+bug/1543025
milestone = None
owner = smoser
owner_name = Scott Moser
private = False
status = fix_released
submitter = smb
submitter_name = Stefan Bader
tags = []
duplicates = [1580331]

Launchpad user Stefan Bader(smb) wrote on 2016-02-08T08:46:18.410930+00:00

ADT runs use cloud-images to create test VM environments. For the Xenial cloud-images I observed a weird issue where libvirt suddenly fails its build-time tests on a time offset test on UTC.
Looking at the prepared image (cloud-init did already run there), I found that indeed a command-line of

TZ=UTC date

reports a CET based time. Looking further this seems to drill down into

/usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC -> Zulu

and that (Zulu another term for UTC) Zulu file looks quite bigger that the same on other hosts and contains the CET string as well (normal ~128b, wrong size 2335). Forcing a reinstall of tzdata will fix the file and also allows the libvirt test to pass.

So I am not sure this is wrong in the initial image base or gets in some way broken during cloud-init. Thats why I start reporting it against cloud-init.

[ubuntu-server-builder]

Launchpad user Martin Pitt(pitti) wrote on 2016-02-08T09:05:56.221397+00:00

I downloaded the current amd64 cloud image and dissected it with kpartx, i. e. without booting. /usr/share/zoneinfo/Zulu is correct there, i. e. 127 bytes. So indeed it sounds like this file gets overwritten by cloud-init.

[ubuntu-server-builder]

Launchpad user Martin Pitt(pitti) wrote on 2016-02-08T09:10:10.836177+00:00

I think the bug is here in cloudinit/distros/init.py:

def set_etc_timezone(tz, tz_file=None, tz_conf="/etc/timezone",
tz_local="/etc/localtime"):
util.write_file(tz_conf, str(tz).rstrip() + "\n")
# This ensures that the correct tz will be used for the system
if tz_local and tz_file:
util.copy(tz_file, tz_local)
return

/etc/localtime ought to be a symlink to the selected file in /usr/share/zoneinfo/, not a copy (it used to in the past due to the possibility of /usr/ being on a separate file system, but that got fixed by initramfs-tools in a better way now). So with the copy() the symlink doesn't get updated, and instead it clobbers the file in /usr/.

[ubuntu-server-builder]

Launchpad user Launchpad Janitor(janitor) wrote on 2016-03-04T22:00:45.468632+00:00

This bug was fixed in the package cloud-init - 0.7.7~bzr1176-0ubuntu1

---

cloud-init (0.7.7~bzr1176-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

• d/README.source, d/new-upstream-snapshot: simplify the README.source
  with a script.
• d/rules: support DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=nocheck and remove unused code.
• d/rules: make tests with python3
• d/control: add pep8 as a build depends
• d/cloud-init.preinst, d/cloud-init.postinst adjust upgrade path
  to adjust systemd jobs that put cloud-init unit jobs directly
  in multi-user.target.
• New upstream snapshot.
  • Add Image Customization Parser for VMware vSphere Hypervisor Support.
    Disabled by default. [Sankar Tanguturi]
  • lxd: add initial support for setting up lxd using 'lxd init'
  • Handle escaped quotes in WALinuxAgentShim.find_endpoint (LP: #1488891)
  • timezone: use a symlink when updating /etc/localtime (LP: #1543025)
  • enable more code testing in 'make check'
  • Added Bigstep datasource [Daniel Watkins]
  • Enable password changing via a hashed string [Alex Sirbu]

-- Scott Moser smoser@ubuntu.com Fri, 04 Mar 2016 15:44:02 -0500

[ubuntu-server-builder]

Launchpad user Jon Grimm(jgrimm) wrote on 2017-03-30T21:26:31.051812+00:00

Updated status, its long been fix released in the upstream.