[deathanatos]

This isn't a typo, but is part of the syntax used by the TZ variable. (The same format appears in the article itself.)

See `man timezone` on a Linux system[1]. Specifically, see the passage that I've quoted below. Note that this is the third of three different formats that the man page describes that you can use in TZ:

> The second format specifies that the timezone information should be read from a file:

    :[filespec]

> *If the file specification filespec is omitted, or its value cannot be interpreted, then Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is used. If filespec is given, it specifies another tzfile(5)-format file to read the timezone information from. If filespec does not begin with a '/', the file specification is relative to the system timezone directory. If the colon is omitted each of the above TZ formats will be tried.

[1]: https://linux.die.net/man/3/timezone

[vesinisa]

Sure, but at least on none of my Linux systems there is no such file /etc/localhost. I think the parent was referring to /etc/localtime. Not sure what is the behaviour if non-existent file is specified - perhaps the "value cannot be interpreted" case applies, but it's not pefectly clear, since it could be argued that the value is valid, just refers to a non-existent file.

[deathanatos]

Ah, correct you are! :-) I had missed that myself, and the : syntax is so rarely seen I naturally assumed that was what was intended.