Fix container timezone

[gjrtimmer]

Gitlab can have a different timezone in relation to the container

Introduction

Default the containers run with timezone set to UTC, which means that the cron daemon can be using a different timezone than gitlab, because the timezone from gitlab can be configured with GITLAB_TIMEZONE.

Use case

My current TimeZone is Europe/Amsterdam Gitlab has the corrent time, but because the container time is UTC it means that the cron daemon which runs the backups does this ` hour to early.

Provided solution

• ADDED
  • configure_container_timezone() -> assets/runtime/functions
• MODIFY
  • Added configure_container_timezone() to function configure_system() before the function install_configuration_templates because timezone is a lower level then templates.
  • README
    • ADD: Variable TZ
    • UPD: Variable GITLAB_TIMZONE

configure_container_timezone()

The provided function has a sanity check which will use UTC as default. The sanity check will check that the user provided value is a valid timezone, by checking if the provided timezone exists within the tzdata zoneinfo.

Configuration

Container TimeZone will use the environment variable TZ, and defaults to UTC. The variable TZ expects values in Canonical format. Link to acceptable values has been added to the README. The format which is expected causes that the GITLAB_TIMEZONE cannot be used here because GITLAB_TIMEZONE can accept timezone in different formats.

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd Request review

[splattael]

@gjrtimmer Thanks for the PR!

Would mounting /etc/localtime into the container have the same effect? E.g. -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro?

[gjrtimmer]

@splattael Never tested that, and I don't know if it would be a solution. I think there would be quite a few situations where there is a complete different timezone between the containers and the host. With this fix it the container will get the correct timezone. Got this fix from docker on how to set the container timezone correctly by using the TZ variable.

This image might even be used by parties that are hosting gitlab environments for clients in different timezone. So I don't want to mount the localtime from the host I want to set it correctly.

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd @sameersbn Any Update

[gjrtimmer]

Rebased on new master

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd Rebased on new master

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd Rebased to 11.5.0

[gjrtimmer]

Rebased to 11.5.1

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd rebased

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd Rebased

[drubin]

@gjrtimmer Hi is there a reason you don't just set the TZ env variable?
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/TZ-Variable.html

We have been using this since we started and we don't have issues with timezones/cron.

[sameersbn]

sorry about the delay in attending to this PR. I really have no issues getting it merged but I am just curious to know if there is a use-case that just setting the TZ env variable is not suffice?

[gjrtimmer]

sorry about the delay in attending to this PR. I really have no issues getting it merged but I am just curious to know if there is a use-case that just setting the TZ env variable is not suffice?

Sorry for the delay; I have environment variable TZ=Europe/Amsterdam set on the container. Still the shell is not reporting the current correct time which results that for example my backup files have an offset of 2 hours because of GMT+2 (Daylight Saving Time).

Proposed PR would fix that; as noted in the change in the README; this PR will also fix the timestamp being used within the CRON.

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd @sameersbn Rebased & Implemented conversation suggestion

[gjrtimmer]

@solidnerd @sameersbn Why is the build not completing ?

[sameersbn]

needs a rebase.

[gjrtimmer]

@sameersbn Rebased, very sorry for the delay