bash - apt-get install tzdata noninteractive

Question

When I try to

apt-get install -y tzdata

the command line option for picking timezone shows up. I am trying to use this in a script to do some setup, how can I make the apt-get run without user input?

I know to reconfigure the tzdata I can do

echo "America/New_York" > /etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

But when installing I need it to run fully even if it doesn't set the right timezone, I can always reconfigure it.

I tried

echo 5 | apt-get install -y tzdata

but it is not working as expected.

Answer 1

This is the script I used

(Updated Version with input from @elquimista from the comments)

#!/bin/bash
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive

ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
apt-get install -y tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

Seems to work fine.

As one liner:

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends tzdata