FWIW, at least for a phusion Docker image which is based on Ubuntu 16.04, this workaround seems to work. As with most things in life related to computer administration there may be a wrinkle to this that I have not yet found.
ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Toronto /etc/localtime && printf 'America\nToronto\n' | dpkg-reconfigure tzdata -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1554806 Title: Change of behavior: "dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive" unconditionally overwrites /etc/timezone now To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tzdata/+bug/1554806/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs