Subject: Re: bug#68411: Timezone not detected from /etc/localtime

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2024 14:14:21 -0500

Hello,

Distopico <[email-masked]> writes:

> On 2024-01-18, Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Distopico <[email-masked]> writes:
>>
>>> Apps such as Icecat or ungoogled-chromium are not able to get the
>>> correct timezone from /etc/localtime when `/etc/localtime` is a realpath
>>> maybe because it expect /etc/share/zoneinfo, with readlink partially
>>> works fine some apps, maybe related with an icu bug.[1]
>>
>> I don't know about ungoogled-chromium, but for IceCat, I had
>> investigated the problem at length in https://issues.guix.gnu.org/59368,
>> and it seems the bug is not in ICU but in Firefox, triggered in very
>> specific situations (resistFingerprinting defaults to true before user
>> prefs are loaded, and resetting the timezone fails in some javascript
>> that expects /etc/localtime to be a symlink, see:
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1817004#c8).
>
> But in icecat there is tow issues, one is related with the
> /etc/localtime that expect a symlink but also there is another one
> related with firefox sandbox, you can see here that  `/usr` and `/nix`
> was added to a whitelist, those paths is where they expect have the
> zoneinfo files and `/gnu` is not in that whitelist (I already reported
> to firefox), and disabling `MOZ_DISABLE_CONTENT_SANDBOX=1` it and with
> the symlink the timezone works again.

In the meantime would you be able to produce a patch adding /gnu to
their allowlist?  Then we'd have to look into the javascript code to see
if we can have it understand an actual file instead of symlink.

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim