How to correct system clock in vagrant automatically

Question

How to Correct Timezone

Last time, I figured out how to adjust a system clock in vagrant server. However, when I halt the vagrant and start it again, the system clock is always 9 hours late. I can adjust by using ntp command manually, but I'd like to know how to adjust the system clock automatically.

I have tried the below, but it still doesn't work. Are there any suggestions?

How to sync time on host wake-up within VirtualBox?

Solution 1

The method I use and it should not be provider specific is to add the following in my Vagrantfile

  config.vm.provision :shell, :inline => "sudo rm /etc/localtime && sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Paris /etc/localtime", run: "always"

you would need to replace '/Europe/Paris' with the timezone you want to set

Solution 2

The simplest way is to set the timezone automatically is to use the vagrant-timezone plugin.

Install it once with:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-timezone

After that, add the below to your Vagrantfile:

if Vagrant.has_plugin?("vagrant-timezone")
   config.timezone.value = "UTC"
end

You may replace "UTC" with any of the tz values listed here. For example: "Asia/Kolkata".

Or you can use your host's timezone with this entry in your Vagrantfile:

if Vagrant.has_plugin?("vagrant-timezone")
   config.timezone.value = :host
end

Solution 3

Accepted answer is not robust enough, as it does not account for people who travel between timezones, and requires end users to modify Vagrantfile instead of just doing vagrant up.

Building up on Scott P.'s answer, here's a better more flexible solution that matches VM timezone to host's tz automatically. There's a typo/mistake in his snippet's Etc/GMT time zone selection, as per POSIX GMT+7 sets clock 7 hours behind (see Wiki explanation), hence we need to swap offsets:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
require 'time'
offset = ((Time.zone_offset(Time.now.zone) / 60) / 60)
timezone_suffix = offset >= 0 ? "-#{offset.to_s}" : "+#{offset.to_s}"
timezone = 'Etc/GMT' + timezone_suffix
config.vm.provision :shell, :inline => "sudo rm /etc/localtime && sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/" + timezone + " /etc/localtime", run: "always"
end

Solution 4

A slightly improved version that auto-detects timezone:

The auto-detect portion came from here.

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  require 'time'
  offset = ((Time.zone_offset(Time.now.zone) / 60) / 60)
  timezone_suffix = offset >= 0 ? "+#{offset.to_s}" : "#{offset.to_s}"
  timezone = 'Etc/GMT' + timezone_suffix
  config.vm.provision :shell, :inline => "sudo rm /etc/localtime && sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/" + timezone + " /etc/localtime", run: "always"
end

Solution 5

I got:

[vagrant@ansiblecontrol ~]$ date -s \"$(curl -I google.com 2>&1 | grep Date: | cut -d' ' -f3-6)Z\"
date: extra operand ‘2018’
Try 'date --help' for more information.

This works for me:

sudo date -s "$(curl -I google.com 2>&1 | grep Date: | cut -d' ' -f3-6)Z"
Sun Apr  1 16:36:59 CEST 2018

So removed the "\" escape character.

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Comments

[Sho]

After matching the version of guest addtion, it perfectly works. (I can not see clearly if the version mismatch really matters to this problem ) I think I should learn ruby if I will keep using vagrant. Thanks soooo much!

[Admin]

@Sho: you can also use vagrant with shell provisioning scripts or writing them with puppet or chef. you are not forced to use ruby. i am quite happy with shell provisioning.

[rubo77]

This did change the timezone, but in the wrong direction. (I live in Europe/Berlin Time)

[polynomial_donut]

Apart from this, times were never properly synced in my Ubuntu based guest until I installed the ntp package (it was already installed on my host) to get NTP up and running - 'Duh' you might say, but I was assuming the guest additions were supposed to take care of this entirely. Of course, one should make sure guest additions are installed.

[cleary]

Thanks for posting! This seems far and away the most vagrant-like method to do this, I'm surprised that I'm the first upvoter though - this is not a new plugin, going by the github commits, it first began development in 2016 (github.com/tmatilai/vagrant-timezone/commits/master)

[cleary]

There is a vagrant-timezone plugin, please see this post: stackoverflow.com/a/62085199/3164018

[Frederic Henri]

@cleary - correct but it did not exist at the time of the question and it depends if you want to have a large set of plugins or in control of what's happening ... for a 1 line in Vagrantfile I don't prefer to install a plugin

[samir mankar]

"vagrant plugin install vagrant-timezone" this solved my issue. Thanks.