[Mailman-Users] Incorrect timezone in mailman-generated messages

[Brad Knowles]

On Oct 20, 2011, at 9:09 AM, Ivan Kuznetsov wrote:

> After the local timezone rules change the mailman sends messages with incorrect timezone in Date: header.

Mailman itself knows nothing about timezones.  Anything to do with timezones being incorrect is almost certainly an Operating System issue, although it could be a library problem.

> Received: from gate2.solvo.ru (gate2-vlan10.solvo.ru [172.16.80.4])
> 	 by hippo.solvo.ru (Cyrus v2.2.12-Invoca-RPM-2.2.12-8.1.RHEL4) with LMTPA;
> 	 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:54:42 +0400
> X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
> Received: from gate2.solvo.ru (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
> 	by gate2.solvo.ru (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2ADCC52E802D
> 	for <listmaster at solvo.ru>; Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:54:42 +0400 (MSK)

These two headers were put on the message by the MTAs, and note that time the time is 15:54 with a timezone offset of +0400.

> Subject: =?koi8-r?b?7sXEz9PUwdfMxc7Oz8UgydrXxd3FzsnFIM/CIM/bycLLxQ==?=
> From: mailman-bounces at solvo.ru
> To: all-owner at solvo.ru
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============0258393610=="
> Message-ID: <mailman.20.1319111680.3169.all at solvo.ru>
> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:54:40 +0300

This date header may have been put on by the local MTA on this machine, or it may have been put on by a Python library, but I don't think it was put on by Mailman itself.  Note that the time is still 15:54, but the timezone is wrong.

> Local time in mailman logs are still correct:
> 
> /var/log/mailman/smtp:
> Oct 20 15:54:42 2011 (3173) <mailman.20.1319111680.3169.all at solvo.ru> smtp to all for 1 recips, completed in 0.102 seconds
> 
> /var/log/mailman/bounce:
> Oct 20 15:54:40 2011 (3169) all: bounce message w/no discernable addresses: <35292842.20111020185427 at 87.subnet125-163-181.speedy.telkom.net.
> Oct 20 15:54:40 2011 (3169) all: forwarding unrecognized, message-id: <35292842.20111020185427 at 87.subnet125-163-181.speedy.telkom.net.id>

These are all references to 15:54, but there is no mention of timezone, so it's impossible to know if they are in reference to +0300 or +0400.

> We are using mailman for years without such a problem before. All other software run at this host now have the correct understanding the local time as MSK standard time = GMT+4
> 
> [root at gate2 mailman]# date '+%Z %::z'
> MSK +04:00:00

Okay, so the OS has been updated with an appropriate time zone definition.  That's good to know.

> I found the similar mailman bug #266314 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/mailman/+bug/266314) but it was years ago and was fixed at version 2.1.7.
> 
> Now we run mailman 2.1.14 with Python 2.4.3 under Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 (a clone of RHEL5)

Sometimes, problems like this are as simple as a program reading the timezone definition on startup, and then never reading it again.  Have you tried stopping and restarting Mailman, in order to get it (and the various Python libraries we use) to read the updated timezone definition?

--
Brad Knowles <brad at shub-internet.org>
LinkedIn Profile: <http://tinyurl.com/y8kpxu>