Gvisor sandboxing creates error in time zone formula

paul-grist · August 22, 2025, 3:19pm

I can see that the package is already installed on the Grist docker image so it shouldn’t be needed to import the package.

The sandboxes only get access to parts of that docker image, controlled via preserve() calls in a script:

github.com/gristlabs/grist-core

sandbox/gvisor/run.py

main


      
          # Prepare the file system - blank out everything that need not be shared.
          exceptions = ["lib", "lib64"]   # to be shared (read-only)
          exceptions += ["proc", "sys"]   # already virtualized
          
          # retain /bin and /usr/bin for utilities
          start = args.start
          if include_bash or start:
            exceptions.append("bin")
            preserve("/usr/bin")
          
          preserve("/usr/local/lib")
          
          # Support user-specific extra directories. This is handy if Python is
          # somewhere weird and there is a maze of soft links to get
          # through. And Python is so often somewhere weird.
          extra_dirs = os.environ.get('GVISOR_EXTRA_DIRS')
          if extra_dirs:
            preserve(*extra_dirs.split(':'))
          
          # Do not attempt to include symlink directories, they are not supported
          # and will cause obscure failures. On debian bookworm /lib64 is a

What is the path to the time zone data? It may be that it isn’t in a directory that is already shared, and to support what you want to do it needs to be shared with the sandboxes.

An alternative could be to install tzdata: