How Can I Change the Date in a Docker Container?

Hi there,

Basically, if you can access your host system, you can change the date of both your Linux host and your Linux container. The only thing to keep in mind is that some Linux distributions use different commands and configurations to set up the system date values.

For example, for my Linode host system running a CentOS 7 distribution, in the Singapore data center region, this is how I configure the date from default:

[root@139-162-4-22 ~]# timedatectl | grep -i 'time zone'
       Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
[root@139-162-4-22 ~]# timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Singapore
[root@139-162-4-22 ~]# timedatectl | grep -i 'time zone'
timedatectl | grep -i 'time zone'
       Time zone: Asia/Singapore (+08, +0800)

This covers that in detail:

• How To Change Timezone on a CentOS 6 and 7 - nixCraft

However, if my Linode host had a different distribution like Ubuntu or Debian, then a different method might be needed. Next you can find some excellent resources you can use to configure the date in your host system:

• Change my time zone in my Linode
• How to Use the Date Command in Linux

If you can only access the your container (no host access), you usually can only change your container's date. That said it looks like Docker allows you to change the host system date from inside the container if you configure you (re-)deploy your container with less secure flags during the container's startup process as describe in this post from the Docker Community post:

"If you are asking how to set the host OS’s clock from inside a container, you would need to relax security on your container by adding the --cap-add SYS_TIME flag to your container at startup.

ie: docker run --rm -it --cap-add SYS_TIME alpine date -s 12:00"

• Is it possible to change time dynamically in docker container? - Docker Community Forums

Good Luck!
Arty