#1091723 checksecurity: date display: please use something other than date +%D american date format for check-diskfree,check-setuid,check-sockets

Package:
checksecurity
Source:
checksecurity
Submitter:
Tim Connors
Date:
2024-12-30 13:27:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1091723#5
Date:
2024-12-30 13:26:15 UTC
From:
To:
Package: checksecurity
Version: 2.0.16+nmu3
Severity: normal
check-diskfree:  /usr/bin/mail -s "Diskfree alert for `hostname -f` on `date '+%D %T'`" $CHECKSECURITY_EMAIL < $TMPDF
check-setuid:          /usr/bin/mail -s "Setuid changes for `hostname -f` on `date '+%D %T'`" $CHECKSECURITY_EMAIL < $TMPDIFF
check-sockets:         /usr/bin/mail -s "Socket changes for `hostname -f` on `date '+%D %T'`" $CHECKSECURITY_EMAIL < $TMPDIFF

Yes, according to `man date`, `date +%D` is "Date".  Unfortunately,
it's a format that's misleading and ambiguous for the 96% of the
world's population that doesn't live in the US (sure, we're used to
seeing backarsewards dates, but for 11 days of the month the dates
coming from these scripts are plausible, but wrong, the 12th day, it's
correct by tautology, and for the other ~18 days of the month, they
merely cause confusion)

A slightly better alternative might be date +%x, but everyone (xkcd
1179) knows the real format you should be using is --iso-8601 or
--rfc-3339=date.