bug#49190: uptime returns an incorrect (18801 days) number of days on OsX

[Manson Thomas]

Hello There,

I've noticed the uptime command on my mac was reporting an incorrect
number of days (18801 instead of 37).
The uptime command is from brew originally.

which -a uptime
/usr/local/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin/uptime
/usr/bin/uptime

and I could reproduce with a compiled version of coreutils :

cd /tmp
curl -L https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-8.32.tar.xz | tar -x
cd coreutils-8.32
./configure --prefix=/tmp/coreutils --without-gmp --without-selinux
make install
/tmp/coreutils/bin/uptime


 $  /tmp/coreutils/bin/uptime
 17:21:21  up 18801 days 14:37,  3 users,  load average: 2.37, 2.68, 2.67

The native uptime command from OSx seems to work :
 $  /usr/bin/uptime
17:28  up 37 days,  7:43, 3 users, load averages: 2.71 2.44 2.50

current date is correct :

$ date
Wed Jun 23 17:36:51 CEST 2021

 $  uname -a
Darwin ThomasManson 20.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 20.4.0: Thu Apr 22
21:46:47 PDT 2021; root:xnu-7195.101.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64 i386
MacBookPro16,1 Darwin


 $  /tmp/coreutils/bin/uptime --version
uptime (GNU coreutils) 8.32
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Joseph Arceneaux, David MacKenzie, and Kaveh Ghazi.

Cordialement,
Thomas Manson.