Setting the Timezone with an automated script

Question

I'm writing scripts to automate setting up new slicehost installations. In a perfect world, after I started the script, it would just run, with no attention from me. I have succeeded, with one exception.

How do I set the timezone, in a permanent (survive reboot) and sane (adjust for standard and daylight savings time, so no just forcing the date) ... manner that doesn't require input from me?

Currently, I'm using

 dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

This doesn't seem to have any way to force parameters into it. It demands user input.

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EDIT: I'm editing here, rather than commenting, since comments don't seem to allow code blocks.

Here's the actual code I ended up with, based on Rudedog's comment below. I also noticed that this doesn't update /etc/timezone. I'm not certain who uses that, but in case anybody does, I'm setting that too.

TIMEZONE="America/Los_Angeles"      
echo $TIMEZONE > /etc/timezone                     
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/${TIMEZONE} /etc/localtime   # This sets the time

Solution 1

You should be able to do this with

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime

Substitute the appropriate timezone in the above command.

Solution 2

Try this:

echo "Europe/London" > /etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

Solution 3

On Ubuntu 12.04 the following did the trick for me:

# http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man7/debconf.7.html
export DEBCONF_NONINTERACTIVE_SEEN=true DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
echo "Europe/Berlin" > /etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Solution 4

Update /etc/localtime symlink to point to correct timezone in /usr/share/zoneinfo/

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$(tzselect) /etc/localtime

Solution 5

Ran into this myself. Here's a complete config for how to do this right (it's an aggregate of comments in here and this question):

#Set time zone and time
echo "tzdata tzdata/Areas select Europe" | debconf-set-selections
echo "tzdata tzdata/Zones/Europe select London" | debconf-set-selections
TIMEZONE="Europe/London"
echo $TIMEZONE > /etc/timezone
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/${TIMEZONE} /etc/localtime
/usr/sbin/ntpdate pool.ntp.org

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Comments

[Zypher]

you should be symlinking that not copying over

[Rudedog]

He's using Debian. dpkg-reconfigure tzdata makes a copy, not a symlink. I believe the rationale is because /usr/share might not be mounted at boot time.

[brent]

According to the technical section of the tzconfig manpage for Debian: >The work done by tzconfig is actually pretty simple. It just updates the link /etc/localtime to point to the correct timezone installed in /usr/share/zoneinfo/.

[Rudedog]

tzconfig is deprecated on lenny in favor of dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and won't actually do anything. You can verify that it copies instead of symlinks by running dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and look at the result.

[peterh]

Although the code is appreciated, it should always have an accompanying explanation. This doesn't have to be long but it is expected.

[Peter Gibson]

This method doesn't appear to work anymore bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/1554806

[Peter Gibson]

This method doesn't appear to work anymore bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/1554806

[SuB]

Works on Ubuntu 14.04.