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.

Solution 1:

This is the script I used

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

#!/bin/bash
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
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

Solution 2:

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

ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
RUN apt-get -y install tzdata

Solution 3:

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).

Solution 4:

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