tzdata package on ubuntu image

[Ramenth86]

Hi All,
I'm having trouble installing python3 on an ubuntu container because I can't install tzdata (which is a dependency of python3). When I try to install tzdata, tzdata tries to set local time in the container and then it falls over

mv: cannot move '/etc/localtime.dpkg-new' to '/etc/localtime': Device or resource busy

I tried setting the timezone when I first create the container

podman run --interactive --tty --name DiFX_on_ubuntu --volume /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix --env DISPLAY --volume /home/mike/containerization:/home --tz="America/New_York" docker.io/library/ubuntu

but I still run into the same issue, I've also tried --tz=local.

Has anyone else run into the same issue and developed a workaround?

[Luap99]

Don't set --tz

[Ramenth86]

Thanks for the reply! I tried recreating without setting --tz (run command below and I still have the same issue. I also tried setting a hold on tzdata with apt but python was really insistent that it needed that package

podman run --interactive --tty --name DiFX_on_ubuntu --volume /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix --env DISPLAY docker.io/library/ubuntu

apt-mark hold tzdata

any help would be greatly appreciated

I'm working off of this tutorial
https://community.endlessos.com/t/running-ubuntu-with-podman/10506

[Luap99]

Do you have a timezone define in containers.conf then?

By default there is no default tz so no mount on /etc/localtime will be created unless you specified a timezone somewhere

$ podman run --rm quay.io/libpod/testimage:20241011 mount | grep /etc/localtime
$ podman run --rm --tz local quay.io/libpod/testimage:20241011 mount | grep /etc/localtime
tmpfs on /etc/localtime type tmpfs (rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=3260500k,nr_inodes=815125,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000,inode64)

So yeah if any packages tries to remove this file when it is bind mounted it will fail.

[Ramenth86]

Ok I figured it out I had also set tz in the containers.conf file which was why I couldn't modify the /etc/localtime file. Thanks again for the help!