Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page

Mig21 · 02-08-2011, 09:43 AM

Hey

I have a Slackware 12.2 server that's been up for 760 days. Today I connected to it and ran 'date', thinking the time may need to be updated (clock is not perfect), and got this:

Code:

$ date
Tue Feb  8 15:59:56 Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page 2011
$ ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 2009-04-23 02:29 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT
$ cat /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT
TZif21Local time zone must be set--see zic manual pageTZif21Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page
<Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page>0

Given how long this server's been running I'm sure I would have noticed before if it printed this warning.

I've googled around and there are some suggestions for how to fix it, which I can follow, but what worries me is that maybe the system has been compromised?

Anybody know what could cause this warning to appear on a running system without any changes made to it? Could it be a bad sign?

Actually there have been some changes - I do install security updates, so maybe one of those screwed something up?

Thanks in advance

ponce · 02-08-2011, 10:56 AM

I'm just guessing, but I don't think it's related to an intrusion, it can be just the /etc/localtime|/usr/share/zoneinfo/localtime link has changed.
maybe, if you applied only patches, there's a package updated on 28-10-2011, glibc-zoneinfo, that could be related but more expert eyes than mine could check if it's ok: the package's doinst.sh got two additional lines added because a link is created also in the glibc.Slackbuild, but I have to admit it's pretty hard for me to read. It can be also it's not related at all.

btw, running timeconfig should fix it right away.

you can try rolling back to the unpatched glibc-zoneinfo package after fixing and then re-update to the patched version to see if it breaks again.

Mig21 · 02-11-2011, 10:34 AM

Thanks a lot! I ran timeconfig and that fixed the problem. I'd try the rollback and reupgrade as you suggested, but this is a production server and I'd rather not do anything on it that doesn't need to be done.

Your suggestions for probable explanations will let me sleep easy

Thanks