Alpine Linux timezone doesn't stick if tzdata is removed

Question

This used to work to set the timezone. I have a container on Alpine 3.9.4 where it worked:

RUN apk add --no-cache tzdata
ENV TZ America/Chicago
RUN apk del tzdata

I'm now creating a Docker container with Alpine Linux v3.10.3, and it doesn't work anymore. A user suggested that I need to copy to /etc/localtime:

RUN apk add --no-cache tzdata
ENV TZ America/Chicago
RUN cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && echo $TZ > /etc/timezone
RUN apk del tzdata

Neither of these work if tzdata is removed. However, they work if tzdata is not removed. Why is this?

Interesting. It doesn't work on alpine:latest. As soon as I remove tzdata, the container decides it's going to be UTC. — Michael Hampton, Apr 14 '20 at 20:43
This _question_ was the _answer_ to my problem. :) Crazy that this single StackExchange post seems to be the only place on the Internet that mentions this behavior. — sizzle beam, Apr 28 '21 at 12:50

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 16 '21 at 07:15

0

You can try the setup-timezone script from alpine-conf package for that scenario.

answered Sep 16 '21 at 07:15

Simão Silva

1 Answers1