[Bug 1342424] Re: update-notifier presents unclear update message

[Michael Vogt]

@Nick: Yeah! Its kind of ironic that I was using iso dates before and
during the internal testing it was suggested to use the dates based on
the locale. Oh well.

It turns out that pam-motd runs the update-motd stuff without LANG/LOCALE information.
"""
+  if (!system("/usr/bin/env -i PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin run-parts --lsbsysinit /etc/update-motd.d > /run/motd.dynamic.new"))
"""

So to fix that, something like:
"""
  char cmd[255];
  char *language = pam_getenv(pamh, "LANGUAGE");
  if(language == NULL) language = "";
  char *lang = pam_getenv(pamh, "LANG");
  if(locale == NULL) locale = "";
  snprintf(cmd, sizeof(cmd), "/usr/bin/env -i LANGUAGE=\"%s\" LANG=\"%s\" PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin run-parts --lsbsysinit /etc/update-motd.d > /run/motd.dynamic.new", language, lang);
  if(!system(cmd))
"""
I would love to get feedback from the pam maintainer if that is something we want to support, I'm happy to write the code for this. But given the side-effects that all update-motd scripts are suddenly running localized I think simply going to iso date format in the script is the better option for now.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1342424

Title:
  update-notifier presents unclear update message

Status in “update-notifier” package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  I logged in to a server and got:

  Your current Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is going out of support
  on 08/07/14.  After this date security updates for critical parts (kernel
  and graphics stack) of your system will no longer be available.

  For more information, please see:
  http://wiki.ubuntu.com/1204_HWE_EOL

  To upgrade to a supported (or longer supported) configuration:

  * Upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS by running:
  sudo do-release-upgrade 

  OR

  * Install a newer HWE version by running:
  sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-trusty linux-image-generic-lts-trusty

  and reboot your system.

  
  That's all well and good, but 08/07/14 is not a meaningful date. Here, it's in the near past. Some places, it's in the near future. When is the HWE going out of support? Who can tell?

  (NB: pretty sure I have the wrong package, but I have no idea what the
  real one is.)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: update-notifier (not installed)
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-42.63~precise1-generic 3.8.13.23
  Uname: Linux 3.8.0-42-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.6
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Wed Jul 16 11:38:29 2014
  MarkForUpload: True
  SourcePackage: update-notifier
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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