Docker Timezone in Ubuntu 16.04 Image

Question

I have created a Docker container using the Ubuntu 16.04 image.

docker run -it -d --name containername -v /var/www/public --privileged ubuntu

Answer 1

In ubuntu 16.04 i was missing tzdata so i had to install it. Working solution was

    ENV TZ 'Europe/Tallinn'
    RUN echo $TZ > /etc/timezone && \
    apt-get update && apt-get install -y tzdata && \
    rm /etc/localtime && \
    ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && \
    dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata && \
    apt-get clean

Answer 2

If you use docker-compose, just add one line to your docker-compose.yml file.

version: '3'

services:
  ubuntu-local:
    image: ubuntu:16.04
    restart: on-failure
    command: python3 run_my_code.py
    working_dir: /code
    volumes:
      - ./code:/code
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro   # <--add this line to set timezone
    environment:
      - PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1

Answer 3

I took this approach:

1. Copy file /etc/localtime somewhere.

2. Open it and find the this number (highlighted with yellow)

3. -3 corresponds to Moscow time. For Berlin set -1 . If you need positive value, set UTC2

4. Copy and modify /etc/timezone according to your time zone.

5. Link them to your container

Result:

Answer 4

As said here, the secret is that dpkg-reconfigure tzdata simply creates /etc/localtime as a copy, hardlink or symlink (a symlink is preferred) to a file in /usr/share/zoneinfo. So it is possible to do this entirely from your Dockerfile. Consider:

ENV TZ=America/Los_Angeles
RUN ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone

And as a bonus, TZ will be set correctly in the container as well.

This is also distribution-agnostic, so it works with pretty much anything Linux.

Answer 5

My issue has been solved with this very simple solution (https://serverfault.com/a/826222) : Add timezone in environment variable.

The command is docker run -e TZ=Europe/Amsterdam ...

Or, using docker-compose, like I do :

version: '3'
services:
    web:
        build: ./app
        ports:
            - ...
        volumes:
            - ...
        environment:
            - TZ=Europe/Paris

In my case, no more tzdata needed, or volume share with /etc/timezone & /etc/localtime.
Hope it helps !

Answer 6

I am also experiencing this issue for a Ubuntu 18.04 docker container. Since tzdata package is not installed. There is no /usr/share/zoneinfo dir inside the docker. We need to first install tzdata and use dpkg-reconfigure to set the timezone. The following docker command works for me:

ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
RUN ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc/localtime \
    && dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata