diff --git a/cmd/containerd/command/main.go b/cmd/containerd/command/main.go
index 80ef3761f..55e6393e7 100644
--- a/cmd/containerd/command/main.go
+++ b/cmd/containerd/command/main.go
@@ -48,6 +48,11 @@ high performance container runtime
 `
 
 func init() {
+	logrus.SetFormatter(&logrus.TextFormatter{
+		TimestampFormat: log.RFC3339NanoFixed,
+		FullTimestamp:   true,
+	})
+
 	// Discard grpc logs so that they don't mess with our stdio
 	grpclog.SetLoggerV2(grpclog.NewLoggerV2(ioutil.Discard, ioutil.Discard, ioutil.Discard))
 
diff --git a/log/context.go b/log/context.go
index f40603b17..3fab96b85 100644
--- a/log/context.go
+++ b/log/context.go
@@ -42,6 +42,10 @@ type (
 // and is usually used to trace detailed behavior of the program.
 const TraceLevel = logrus.Level(uint32(logrus.DebugLevel + 1))
 
+// RFC3339NanoFixed is time.RFC3339Nano with nanoseconds padded using zeros to
+// ensure the formatted time is always the same number of characters.
+const RFC3339NanoFixed = "2006-01-02T15:04:05.000000000Z07:00"
+
 // ParseLevel takes a string level and returns the Logrus log level constant.
 // It supports trace level.
 func ParseLevel(lvl string) (logrus.Level, error) {