[BUG / possible BUG] HAS_OPENBSDDATE incorrectly set to true on Ubuntu 25.10

[teki69]

Hello,

I am running version testssl.sh version 3.2.2 from https://testssl.sh/

I couldn't find anything related to this issue.

The code calculating certificates validity displays an error message from the date command due to an unsupported option (-j). Therefore this error exists independently of the targets.

 Common Name (CN)             testssl.sh  (CN in response to request w/o SNI: default.name )
 subjectAltName (SAN)         borken.testssl.sh dev.testssl.sh testssl.sh
 Trust (hostname)             Ok via SAN and CN (SNI mandatory)
 Chain of trust               Ok
 EV cert (experimental)       no
 Certificate Validity (UTC)   error: unexpected argument '-j' found

  tip: to pass '-j' as a value, use '-- -j'

Usage: date [OPTION]... [+FORMAT]...
       date [OPTION]... [MMDDhhmm[[CC]YY][.ss]]

       FORMAT controls the output.  Interpreted sequences are:
       | Sequence | Description                                                          | Example                |
       | -------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- |
       | %%       | a literal %                                                          | %                      |
       | %a       | locale's abbreviated weekday name                                    | Sun                    |
       | %A       | locale's full weekday name                                           | Sunday                 |

My system :

• OS: Ubuntu Questing Quokka (development branch)
• Platform: Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64
• OpenSSL + bash: Using OpenSSL 3.5.2 (Sep 1 2025) [~96 ciphers] Using bash 5.2.37
• date -V : date (uutils coreutils) 0.2.2

Additional context

This line code yearnow="$(date -juz GMT "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")" is called if$HAS_OPENBSDDATE is true.
This code block sets it to true depending on some conditions related to date commands :

HAS_OPENBSDDATE=false
if date -d @735275209 >/dev/null 2>&1; then
     if date -r @735275209  >/dev/null 2>&1; then
          # It can't do any conversion from a plain date output.
          HAS_OPENBSDDATE=true
     else
          HAS_GNUDATE=true
     fi
fi

Ubuntu 25.10 has transitionned from GNU Core-utils to Rust Core-utils and it seems that this changes the result of your test for flagging HAS_OPENBSDDATE.

[dcooper16]

I was able to reproduce this on a live version of Ubuntu 25.10 Beta. The man page for "date" on both Ubuntu 24.04 and Ubuntu 25.10 have the same description for the -r option:

-r, --reference=FILE
       display the last modification time of FILE

On Ubuntu 24.04, date -r @735275209 outputs a "No such file or directory" message and returns an error code (1). On Ubuntu 25.10, date -r @735275209 outputs the current date/time and returns 0. (It seems that the behavior of the -r option has changed, but the man page was not revised.)

According to https://man.openbsd.org/date, -r option for date on OpenBSD will "Print out (in specified format) the date and time represented by seconds from the Epoch."

So, maybe in the case that date -r @735275209 doesn't return an error, the string that is output needs to be checked to verify it is the date expected.

[drwetter]

thanks @teki69 and @dcooper16! Care to help?

[teki69]

Following David's suggestion, this works for me:

HAS_OPENBSDDATE=false
if date -d @735275209 >/tmp/@735275209d 2>&1; then
     if date -r @735275209  >/tmp/@735275209r 2>&1; then
          # It can't do any conversion from a plain date output.
          if diff /tmp/@735275209d /tmp/@735275209r >/dev/null 2>&1; then
               HAS_OPENBSDDATE=true
          else
               HAS_GNUDATE=true
          fi
     else
          HAS_GNUDATE=true
     fi
fi
rm -f /tmp/@735275209d /tmp/@735275209r

[drwetter]

@teki69 : thanks! Is a PR coming from you or do you want me rather to do that?

[drwetter]

After my morning coffee showed effects: the fixed path is not fine as it is predictable. Maybe I'll give it a swing later during the day as I can test it for a lot of OS, but not Ubuntu 25.10.

[teki69]

@drwetter : please do and I'll check it works on Ubuntu 25.10 too.