User Stories:

As a user, I want to have time and date set up automatically, so that I can just confirm the configuration without any intervention. (default)

As a user, I want to manually choose a specific timezone, so that the installed system uses my local time.

As a user, I want to be able to enable the network time, so that my time is set up automatically and synchronized with an external time source. (requires access to the network)

As a user, I want to set the time manually, so that my time is correct even when my system doesn't have access to the network.

As a government-based administrator, I want to set up time manually because this machine is air-gapped. (same use case as above)

As an advanced user, I want to set up custom time sources (NTP servers and pools), so that I can use the network time. (There has to be at least one functional NTP server configured in the installer, otherwise the network time is disabled. The default NTP servers can be out of reach and therefore unavailable.)

As a user on a corporate network, I want to be able to set the corporate NTP servers manually, so that I can use the network time at work. (Same as the use case above. Usually the NTP servers are provided together with the IP address via DHCP, but this might not always work correctly or the user might not be using DHCP - in that case it might be necessary to set the NTP server addresses manually.)

As a user on a corporate network, I want to be able to verify that the corporate NTP servers are in use (if any) and not the default public one, so that I can follow the company policy. (Time synchronization is important for some authentication systems to work correctly, so many corporations enforce their own NTP servers to be used & block all other servers so they can’t be spoofed by an attacker.){}

As a user, I need the installation system to have the correct time, so that I can finish the installation. (Incorrect time can, for example, invalidate some certificates.)

Description:

It should be possible to configure the timezone as well as NTP server on the time and date step.

Design document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fl65m8HKJylvj0brWsQQi5bZofynNithywj3JULWcyc/edit?usp=sharing

Acceptance criteria:

• The timezone can be configured in the user interface.
  • By default, the timezone is set to America/New_York.
  • If geolocation is enabled, the timezone is set to the provided value by default.
  • The timezone can be manually changed to another one in the UI.
  • The selected timezone is visible in the UI.
• The network time can be configured in the user interface if the network is set up.
  • The network time can be disabled in the UI.
  • The network time is automatically disabled if there is no functional time source to use.
  • By default, the time sources are configured automatically based on the DHCP results.
  • Any time source (NTP server or NTP pool) can be added, changed or removed.
  • Each time source indicates its status (working/not working/in progress).
  • The NTS support can be enabled for any time source.
• The time can be configured manually in the user interface if the network time is disabled.
  • By default, the time is the same as the time of the installation environment.
  • The time can be manually changed in the UI.
  • The configured time is changes the time of the installation environment.

The strikethrough text above was removed from the scope of this epic because these are not necessary for the Fedora deployment. We also want to question how big is importance of this functionality in the UI.

Third party ACKs:

All the third parties who should be informed of this issue please provide here an ACK in case you agree with this proposed issue. This issue will then be included for the next quarterly planning.