When automating server deployments, any interactive command like dpkg-reconfigure tzdata breaks the workflow. The challenge is to configure the timezone permanently while handling daylight saving time automatically.

The proper way involves two critical files:

# Set timezone for America/Los_Angeles
TIMEZONE="America/Los_Angeles"
echo $TIMEZONE > /etc/timezone
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/${TIMEZONE} /etc/localtime

After configuration, verify with:

# Check system time
date
# Check timezone settings
timedatectl
# Verify symlink
ls -l /etc/localtime

For deployment scripts, consider this robust version:

#!/bin/bash
set_timezone() {
    local tz="$1"
    [ -f "/usr/share/zoneinfo/$tz" ] || {
        echo "Error: Timezone $tz doesn't exist" >&2
        return 1
    }
    echo "$tz" > /etc/timezone
    ln -sf "/usr/share/zoneinfo/$tz" /etc/localtime
    dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata >/dev/null 2>&1
    systemctl restart cron >/dev/null 2>&1
}

For RHEL/CentOS systems:

timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

For Alpine Linux:

setup-timezone -z America/Chicago

In Docker containers, you'll need to:

RUN ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime \
    && echo "America/Los_Angeles" > /etc/timezone

When automating server deployments, timezone configuration often becomes the last manual step. The standard dpkg-reconfigure tzdata command requires interactive input, breaking our precious CI/CD pipelines. Here's how to solve this properly.

Linux systems store timezone information in two critical locations:

1. /etc/localtime (binary timezone data)
2. /etc/timezone (textual timezone identifier)

For Ubuntu/Debian systems, here's the complete automation approach:

#!/bin/bash
TZ="America/Los_Angeles"

# Set the timezone identifier
echo "$TZ" | sudo tee /etc/timezone

# Create the symlink to zoneinfo
sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime

# Optional: reconfigure to ensure all services pick up changes
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

For containerized environments or minimal installations, you might need additional steps:

# For Alpine Linux:
apk add --no-cache tzdata
cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/$TZ /etc/localtime
echo "$TZ" > /etc/TZ

# For CentOS/RHEL:
timedatectl set-timezone $TZ

Always validate your timezone configuration:

date
timedatectl status
ls -l /etc/localtime
cat /etc/timezone

Remember that timezone rules change periodically. Include this in your maintenance scripts:

# For Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install -y tzdata

# For RHEL/CentOS:
sudo yum update -y tzdata

For cloud deployments, add this to your cloud-init configuration:

#cloud-config
timezone: America/Los_Angeles