[Bug 1829968] [NEW] motd [on at least some instances] does not auto-update daily

[Christian Reis]

Public bug reported:

I have a VM running on AWS. It was launched on May 9th:

  $ uptime
   05:26:21 up 12 days,  6:34,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
  $ date
  Wed May 22 05:26:24 UTC 2019

I touched none of the system defaults, and yet the motd has not updated
automatically.

  $ ls -l /var/cache/motd-news
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May  9 22:53 /var/cache/motd-news

The systemd timer unit looks like this:

  $ systemctl status motd-news.timer 
  ● motd-news.timer - Message of the Day
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/motd-news.timer; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (elapsed) since Thu 2019-05-09 22:51:58 UTC; 1 weeks 5 days ago
    Trigger: n/a

  May 09 22:51:58 ip-172-31-23-224 systemd[1]: Started Message of the
Day.

If I run /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force manually, the file does
update correctly.

** Affects: base-files (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Bug watch added: github.com/systemd/systemd/issues #6680
   https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6680

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1829968

Title:
  motd [on at least some instances] does not auto-update daily

Status in base-files package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I have a VM running on AWS. It was launched on May 9th:

    $ uptime
     05:26:21 up 12 days,  6:34,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
    $ date
    Wed May 22 05:26:24 UTC 2019

  I touched none of the system defaults, and yet the motd has not
  updated automatically.

    $ ls -l /var/cache/motd-news
    -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May  9 22:53 /var/cache/motd-news

  The systemd timer unit looks like this:

    $ systemctl status motd-news.timer 
    ● motd-news.timer - Message of the Day
       Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/motd-news.timer; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
       Active: active (elapsed) since Thu 2019-05-09 22:51:58 UTC; 1 weeks 5 days ago
      Trigger: n/a

    May 09 22:51:58 ip-172-31-23-224 systemd[1]: Started Message of the
  Day.

  If I run /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force manually, the file
  does update correctly.

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