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

after creating the container, I checked the date inside the container:

$ date
Tue Oct 25 08:10:34 UTC 2016

But, I need it to use the Asia/Kolkata timezone. So I tried changing the /etc/timezone file, then docker stop and docker start the container, but it doesn't work. It still shows the same time.

How can I change the time zone in the Docker container after creating it?

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

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.