Set containers timezones by using docker compose

Question

I have a docker-compose file running a few Dockerfiles to create my containers. I don't want to edit my Dockerfiles to set timezones because they could change at any time by members of my team and I have a docker-compose.override.yml file to make local environment changes. However, one of my containers (a Selenium based one) seems to not pull host time zone and that causes problems for me. Based on that I want to enforce timezones on all my containers. In my Dockerfiles right now I do

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

How do I replicate the same command in docker-compose syntax?

Answer 1

version "2"

services:
  serviceA:
    ...
    environment:
      TZ: "America/Denver"
    command: >
      sh -c "ln -snf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime && 
      echo $TZ > /etc/timezone &&
      exec my-main-application"

I hope it would help.

Answer 2

The easiest way to change the time in a Docker container is to change the time using ‘date’ command after connecting to the container.

docker exec -it container-name /bin/bash
date +%T -s "10:00:00"

Answer 3

It should look something like this in the Dockerfile:

RUN apk add --no-cache tzdata
ENV TZ America/Los_Angeles

Answer 4

This should do the trick, simple and straight forward

environment:
  - TZ=America/Denver

Answer 5

Share volume in docker-compose.yml. 

ipchanger:
  image: imagename
  volumes:
    - "/etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro"