diff --git a/docker/etherpad/Dockerfile b/docker/etherpad/Dockerfile
index ad66e1b449..75e481b4e4 100644
--- a/docker/etherpad/Dockerfile
+++ b/docker/etherpad/Dockerfile
@@ -22,9 +22,16 @@
 #
 # Author: muxator
 
-FROM node:14-buster-slim
+FROM node:18-bookworm-slim
 LABEL maintainer="infra-root@openstack.org"
 
+ARG TIMEZONE=
+RUN \
+  [ -z "${TIMEZONE}" ] || { \
+    ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/"${TIMEZONE#/usr/share/zoneinfo/}" /etc/localtime; \
+    dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata; \
+  }
+
 # plugins to install while building the container. By default no plugins are
 # installed.
 # If given a value, it has to be a space-separated, quoted list of plugin names.
@@ -93,7 +100,7 @@ USER etherpad
 
 RUN git clone https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite ${EP_DIR}
 WORKDIR "${EP_DIR}"
-RUN git checkout 1.8.18
+RUN git checkout v1.9.1
 
 # Plugins must be installed before installing Etherpad's dependencies, otherwise
 # npm will try to hoist common dependencies by removing them from
diff --git a/playbooks/roles/etherpad/templates/settings.json.j2 b/playbooks/roles/etherpad/templates/settings.json.j2
index be1d75d1f1..f701bd489b 100644
--- a/playbooks/roles/etherpad/templates/settings.json.j2
+++ b/playbooks/roles/etherpad/templates/settings.json.j2
@@ -43,8 +43,8 @@
     "showChat":         true,
     "showLineNumbers":  true,
     "useMonospaceFont": false,
-    "userName":         false,
-    "userColor":        false,
+    "userName":         null,
+    "userColor":        null,
     "rtl":              false,
     "alwaysShowChat":   true,
     "chatAndUsers":     false,