Bug 615819

Summary: Changing timezone when /etc/localtime is a symlink corrupts old timezone file
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Matt McCutchen <matt>
Component: python-slipAssignee: Nils Philippsen <nphilipp>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 13CC: nphilipp
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: python-slip-0.2.13-1.fc13 Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
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Last Closed: 2010-09-02 20:37:51 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Flags
Wrapper script to warn about this bug none

Description Matt McCutchen 2010-07-19 00:34:17 UTC 
Description of problem:
I had locally made /etc/localtime a symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York because the Evolution calendar prefers this format.  I used system-config-date to change the timezone to America/Los_Angeles, and it apparently wrote through the symlink at /etc/localtime and corrupted /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York.  It should be smart enough to replace the symlink in that case.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
system-config-date-1.9.59-1.fc13.noarch

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
2. Change the timezone to something else with system-config-date.
3. rpm -Vf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

Actual results:
S.5......    /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

Expected results:
(empty output)

Additional info:
system-config-date updates /etc/localtime using slip.util.files.linkorcopyfile from python-slip, which calls realpath on the destination path.  That behavior clearly isn't what system-config-date wants, but I can't speak to what behavior is best for python-slip in general.
Comment 1 Matt McCutchen 2010-07-19 01:06:16 UTC 
Created attachment 432751 [details]
Wrapper script to warn about this bug

I installed the attached script at /usr/local/bin/system-config-date to make sure I don't get burned by this issue again.  Other users might wish to do the same.
Comment 2 Nils Philippsen 2010-08-24 15:39:41 UTC 
This is a problem in python-slip.
Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2010-08-24 16:02:52 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc14 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 14.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc14
Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2010-08-24 16:02:57 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc12 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 12.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc12
Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2010-08-24 16:03:06 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc13 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 13.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc13
Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2010-08-24 21:14:15 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc13 has been pushed to the Fedora 13 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update python-slip'.  You can provide feedback for this update here: http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/python-slip-0.2.12-1.fc13
Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2010-09-02 20:37:37 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.13-1.fc13 has been pushed to the Fedora 13 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2010-10-01 12:25:01 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.13-1.fc14 has been pushed to the Fedora 14 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2010-10-08 20:39:11 UTC 
python-slip-0.2.13-1.fc12 has been pushed to the Fedora 12 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.