[Error] timezone not copied from OpenSuSE Tumbleweed host to Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS guest when using --init

[GentleHumour]

Describe the bug

Using distrobox 1.7.2.1 on an OpenSuSE Tumbleweed 20240830 host, the host timezone doesn't get copied to an Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS container when it is created with --additional-packages systemd --init. Omitting those distrobox create flags results in a correct timezone in the guest, but the timezone cannot be changed with sudo timedatectl set-timezone Australia/Adelaide due to timedatectl being dependent on systemd.

Edited to add:
I think that distrobox is setting up /etc/timezone and /etc/localtime before systemd starts whatever service is responsible for populating them when I do --init.

To Reproduce

Create and enter:

$ distrobox create -i ubuntu:20.04 --name test --hostname test --root \
     --volume /:/media/root:rw --additional-packages systemd --init
$ distrobox enter --root test

Guest time and zone:

$ date
Mon  2 Sep 13:22:24 UTC 2024

Host time and zone:

$ date
Mon  2 Sep 22:52:26 ACST 2024

$ ls -la /etc/localtime /etc/timezone
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Oct 25  2022 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/Adelaide

/etc/timezone:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root    0 Dec 20  2022 ./
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5666 Sep  2 19:25 ../

Note that /etc/timezone is a directory on Tumbleweed.

Expected behavior

Same time and timezone in the guest as on the host.

Logs

create-logs.txt
enter-logs.txt
podman-logs.txt

Desktop (please complete the following information):

$ podman --version
podman version 5.2.2
$ distrobox --version
distrobox: 1.7.2.1
$ cat /etc/issue.net
Welcome to openSUSE Tumbleweed 20240830 - Kernel %r (%t).
$ uname -a
Linux ahostname 6.10.5-1-default #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Aug 16 11:15:41 UTC 2024 (30fd964) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

• How did you install distrobox? OS package distrobox.

[89luca89]

Timezone is not copied when using --init as shown here:

distrobox/distrobox-init

Line 2468 in 1244b33

if [ -f /etc/localtime ]; then

It is an intended behaviour, as --init should act more like a separate system
Use timedatectl to set it