CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashubuntudockerfileapt-get
PYA
PYA

Reputation: 8636

apt-get install tzdata noninteractive

When I try to 

apt-get install -y tzdata

the command line option for picking timezone shows up. I am trying to use this in a script to do some setup, how can I make the apt-get run without user input?

I know to reconfigure the tzdata I can do 

echo "America/New_York" > /etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

But when installing I need it to run fully even if it doesn't set the right timezone, I can always reconfigure it.

I tried 

echo 5 | apt-get install -y tzdata

but it is not working as expected.

Upvotes: 236

Views: 145352

Answers (8)

MrJacqes
MrJacqes

Reputation: 381

After reading the comments, I did two steps below to use the TZ environment variable:

  • Added the following to the Dockerfile
RUN DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata && apt-get clean
  • Added the following to the docker CMD script:
    if [ ! -z "${TZ}" ]; then
        echo "${TZ}" > /etc/timezone
        dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
    fi

This worked for me and allowed me to set the time zone when starting the container.

Upvotes: 0

PYA
PYA

Reputation: 8636

This is the script I used

(Updated Version with input from @elquimista from the comments)

#!/bin/bash

ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

Seems to work fine.

As one liner:

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata

Upvotes: 327

Youngjae
Youngjae

Reputation: 25050

If someone wants to achieve it in Dockerfile, use as below.

RUN DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y install tzdata

Upvotes: 166

Pascal H.
Pascal H.

Reputation: 1691

To avoid playing directly with symlinks and to run configuration only once, I suggest to use debconf-set-selections command:

echo 'tzdata tzdata/Areas select Europe' | debconf-set-selections
echo 'tzdata tzdata/Zones/Europe select Paris' | debconf-set-selections
DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive" apt install -y tzdata

Upvotes: 24

grantr
grantr

Reputation: 1049

here is what worked for me:

from ubuntu:bionic
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y tzdata

RUN unlink /etc/localtime
RUN ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime

Upvotes: 3

Patrick
Patrick

Reputation: 1066

I have recently found the following solution in a Dockerfile building the Cingulata FHE library:

ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$(curl https://ipapi.co/timezone) /etc/localtime

It basically uses the API provided by ipapi.co to retrieve the timezone information. This automatically configures the timezone properly instead of skipping the dialog and using the default (UTC).

Upvotes: 13

Mike Maready
Mike Maready

Reputation: 121

Here is how I did it:

echo 1 > input.txt
echo 1 >> input.txt
apt-get install -y tzdata < input.txt
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime
echo America/Los_Angeles > /etc/timezone

The first two echo statements create a text file that contains the selection numbers for the geographic area menu and the city/region menu. This file is then used to provide input to the apt-get install command. The tzdata package will be installed without asking for any user input. The timezone will be set to Africa/Abidjan as if you entered 1 and 1 in response to the prompts you would normally get. Then I change the timezone to what I want with the last two commands.

Instead of 1 and 1, you could use the actual numbers for the geographic area and city/region that you want, but it seems to me that those numbers could change.

Upvotes: 3

jpruiz114
jpruiz114

Reputation: 420

All credit for this should go to @PYA but the right order should be:

ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
apt-get install -y tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

Upvotes: 10

Related Questions