[Pkg-uml-pkgs] Bug#446795: On new sid/lenny systems there is no /etc/timezone - rootstrap fails

[Peder Chr. Nørgaard]

Package: rootstrap
Version: 0.3.24-3
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

in /usr/lib/rootstrap/modules/uml there is this piece of code:

# setup the timezone, the same as the host
[ ! -e $HOST/etc/timezone ] || TARGET_TIMEZONE="$(cat $HOST/etc/timezone)"

if [ -e "$TARGET/usr/share/zoneinfo/$TARGET_TIMEZONE" ] ; then
	chroot $TARGET cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TARGET_TIMEZONE /etc/localtime
	echo "$TARGET_TIMEZONE" > $TARGET/etc/timezone
fi 

I flatly admit that I don't really understand the code.  If there is no 
/etc/timezone on the host we do a "cat" on it...  If there is not, we 
don't assign anything to TARGET_TIMEZONE but we use it anyway...

Nevertheless, the fact is that if you build a new debian system based on 
recent sid/lenny, there is no /etc/timezone file.  If you use that 
system as host for rootstrap, this code snippet fails, causing the 
entire rootstrap process to fail.

There is a work-around; for me, in Denmark, "echo CET > /etc/timezone" 
on the host makes rootstrap work just fine.  Again, I don't undertand 
why it works - I can't figure out where TARGET_TIMEZONE is assigned to.  
But it works.  Only it took me a lot of time to figure this out.  

Obviously, timezone information in sid/lenny is stored a place different 
from /etc/timezone.  I have no clue as to where - my timezone is 
correct, most likely based on the information about location that I gave 
the Debian installer - but I don't know where it has stored the 
information, nor how this information should be copied to the guest 
user-mode-linux file system.

But we need to figure this out and update rootstrap accordingly. Right 
now, rootstrap does not work on newly created sid/lenny host systems.

best regards

Peder Chr. Nørgaard     e-mail: pcn at pogt.dk
Gefionsvej 19           spejder-e-mail: hathi at gallerne.dk
DK-8230 Åbyhøj          tel: +45 87 44 11 99
Denmark                 mob: +45 30 91 84 31


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_DK.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_DK.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages rootstrap depends on:
ii  debootstrap             1.0.3            Bootstrap a basic Debian system
ii  dpkg                    1.14.7           package maintenance system for Deb
ii  python                  2.4.4-6          An interactive high-level object-o
ii  user-mode-linux         2.6.22-1um-1pcn4 User-mode Linux (kernel)

Versions of packages rootstrap recommends:
ii  uml-utilities                 20070815-1 User-mode Linux (utility programs)

-- no debconf information