/usr/share/zoneinfo is a soft link: % ls -l /usr/share/zoneinfo lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 25 Jan 1 2020 /usr/share/zoneinfo -> /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo is also a soft link: % ls -l /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38 Feb 8 21:00 /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo -> /var/db/timezone/tz/2021a.1.0/zoneinfo The reason for two soft links is that /usr/share is (currently) on a read-only volume, so /usr/share/zoneinfo must point at a fixed location. /var/db/timezone/tz is where over-the-air time zone updates are stored. If there is no OTA time zone update installed, /var/db/timezone/zoneinfo points at /usr/share/zoneinfo.default. The OTA time zone update distribution machinery does not currently support the preservation of hard links, so when /usr/share/zoneinfo points at an OTA update, there are no hard links. This is a known issue. All of this is subject to change, of course. Thanks, Deborah
On Feb 12, 2021, at 1:13 PM, Guy Harris <gharris@sonic.net> wrote:
On Feb 12, 2021, at 1:01 PM, Emily Crandall Fleischman <emilycf@mit.edu> wrote:
It looks like Catalina (10.15.7) uses hard links:
$ ls -li /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/US/Pacific /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/America/Los_Angeles 1152921500311900283 -rw-r--r-- 3 root wheel 2819 Nov 9 2019 /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/America/Los_Angeles 1152921500311900283 -rw-r--r-- 3 root wheel 2819 Nov 9 2019 /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/US/Pacific
Depends on where you look:
$ ls -li /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/US/Pacific /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/America/Los_Angeles 1152921500311900257 -rw-r--r-- 3 root wheel 2819 Oct 9 2019 /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/America/Los_Angeles 1152921500311900257 -rw-r--r-- 3 root wheel 2819 Oct 9 2019 /usr/share/zoneinfo.default/US/Pacific $ ls -li /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific 56302834 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2819 Oct 21 20:45 /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles 56302650 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2819 Oct 21 20:45 /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific
Deborah? Any idea what's going on here? For what it's worth, /usr/share/zoneinfo.default and /usr/share/zoneinfo are on different file systems:
$ df /usr/share/zoneinfo.default Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on /dev/disk1s1 15633066472 21990936 11080851032 1% 488348 78164844012 0% / $ df /usr/share/zoneinfo Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on /dev/disk1s2 15633066472 4497237704 11080851032 29% 11077044 78154255316 0% /System/Volumes/Data