How to edit the TimeZone of your Linux system ?

Time zone setup has been done usually while performing the OS installation.If you missed to setup the proper timezone in that point, don’t worry we can setup that later by using simple steps.

Sometimes we may need to change the timezone of systems for various reasons.

Say for example, If you buy a server from third party, they might have set the timezone based on their location.

If so, use the following procedures based on your distributions to change it.

If you are looking for related articles then navigate to the following URLs.

How to change the TimeZone on systemd system in Linux?

systemd is such a wonderful system manager of Linux system, that comes with many handy tools. It help users to perform many actions easily in Linux system.

It offers a tool called timdedatectl for updating the timezone in systemd system.

  • /usr/share/zoneinfo: This directory contains timezone files.
  • /etc/localtime: This file is symlink with timezone file.
  • /etc/timezone: This file is holding timezone name on debian based systems.
  • /etc/sysconfig/clock: This file is holding timezone name on RHEL based systems.

What is timedatectl?

The timedatectl command is control the system time and date. It may be used to query and change the system clock and its settings.

Use one of the following command to view the current timezone.

Check the current timezone using date command.

$ date
Mon Feb 18 18:40:10 IST 2019

Check the current timezone using /etc/localtime file.

$ ls -lh /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Feb 16 03:07 /etc/localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata

Use the following command to check the current timezone on systemd system.

$ timedatectl
or
$ timedatectl status
      Local time: Mon 2019-02-18 18:00:26 IST
  Universal time: Mon 2019-02-18 12:30:26 UTC
        RTC time: Mon 2019-02-18 12:30:27
       Time zone: Asia/Kolkata (IST, +0530)
     NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: n/a

If you would like to change the timezone. First we need to get the desired timezone information by running one of the below command.

Use the following command irrespective of the Linux distributions to find the desired timezone.

$ tzselect
Please identify a location so that time zone rules can be set correctly.
Please select a continent or ocean.
 1) Africa
 2) Americas
 3) Antarctica
 4) Arctic Ocean
 5) Asia
 6) Atlantic Ocean
 7) Australia
 8) Europe
 9) Indian Ocean
10) Pacific Ocean
11) none - I want to specify the time zone using the Posix TZ format.
#? 2

Please select a country.

Please select a country.
 1) Anguilla		  19) Dominican Republic    37) Peru
 2) Antigua & Barbuda	  20) Ecuador		    38) Puerto Rico
 3) Argentina		  21) El Salvador	    39) St Barthelemy
 4) Aruba		  22) French Guiana	    40) St Kitts & Nevis
 5) Bahamas		  23) Greenland		    41) St Lucia
 6) Barbados		  24) Grenada		    42) St Maarten (Dutch)
 7) Belize		  25) Guadeloupe	    43) St Martin (French)
 8) Bolivia		  26) Guatemala		    44) St Pierre & Miquelon
 9) Brazil		  27) Guyana		    45) St Vincent
10) Canada		  28) Haiti		    46) Suriname
11) Caribbean NL	  29) Honduras		    47) Trinidad & Tobago
12) Cayman Islands	  30) Jamaica		    48) Turks & Caicos Is
13) Chile		  31) Martinique	    49) United States
14) Colombia		  32) Mexico		    50) Uruguay
15) Costa Rica		  33) Montserrat	    51) Venezuela
16) Cuba		  34) Nicaragua		    52) Virgin Islands (UK)
17) Curaçao		  35) Panama		    53) Virgin Islands (US)
18) Dominica		  36) Paraguay
#? 49

Please select one of the following time zone regions.

Please select one of the following time zone regions.
 1) Eastern (most areas)	      16) Central - ND (Morton rural)
 2) Eastern - MI (most areas)	      17) Central - ND (Mercer)
 3) Eastern - KY (Louisville area)    18) Mountain (most areas)
 4) Eastern - KY (Wayne)	      19) Mountain - ID (south); OR (east)
 5) Eastern - IN (most areas)	      20) MST - Arizona (except Navajo)
 6) Eastern - IN (Da, Du, K, Mn)      21) Pacific
 7) Eastern - IN (Pulaski)	      22) Alaska (most areas)
 8) Eastern - IN (Crawford)	      23) Alaska - Juneau area
 9) Eastern - IN (Pike)		      24) Alaska - Sitka area
10) Eastern - IN (Switzerland)	      25) Alaska - Annette Island
11) Central (most areas)	      26) Alaska - Yakutat
12) Central - IN (Perry)	      27) Alaska (west)
13) Central - IN (Starke)	      28) Aleutian Islands
14) Central - MI (Wisconsin border)   29) Hawaii
15) Central - ND (Oliver)
#? 20

The following information has been given:

	United States
	MST - Arizona (except Navajo)

Therefore TZ='America/Phoenix' will be used.
Local time is now:	Mon Feb 18 06:08:47 MST 2019.
Universal Time is now:	Mon Feb 18 13:08:47 UTC 2019.
Is the above information OK?
1) Yes
2) No
#? 1

You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line
	TZ='America/Phoenix'; export TZ
to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again.

Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you
can use the /usr/bin/tzselect command in shell scripts:
America/Phoenix

For systemd systems, use the following command to check the desired timezone information.

$ timedatectl list-timezones | grep America | less
America/Adak
America/Anchorage
America/Anguilla
America/Antigua
America/Araguaina
America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires
America/Argentina/Catamarca
America/Argentina/Cordoba
America/Argentina/Jujuy
America/Argentina/La_Rioja
America/Argentina/Mendoza
America/Argentina/Rio_Gallegos
America/Argentina/Salta
America/Argentina/San_Juan
America/Argentina/San_Luis
America/Argentina/Tucuman
America/Argentina/Ushuaia
America/Aruba
America/Asuncion
America/Atikokan
America/Bahia
America/Bahia_Banderas
America/Barbados
America/Belem
America/Belize
America/Blanc-Sablon
America/Boa_Vista
America/Bogota
America/Boise
America/Cambridge_Bay
America/Campo_Grande
America/Cancun
America/Caracas
America/Cayenne
America/Cayman
America/Chicago
America/Chihuahua
America/Costa_Rica
America/Creston
America/Cuiaba
America/Curacao
America/Danmarkshavn
America/Dawson
America/Dawson_Creek
America/Denver
America/Detroit
America/Dominica
America/Edmonton
America/Eirunepe
America/El_Salvador
America/Fort_Nelson
America/Fortaleza
:

If you got the desired timezone information then go ahead and change it.

How to change the TimeZone in systemd Systems?

For systemd system, use the timedatectl command to change the timezone.

$ sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago

If you would like to restart the timedatectl service, use the following command.

# systemctl restart systemd-timedated

Run the following command to verify the new timezone.

# timedatectl
      Local time: Tue 2019-02-19 06:08:15 CST
  Universal time: Tue 2019-02-19 12:08:15 UTC
        RTC time: Tue 2019-02-19 12:08:15
       Time zone: America/Chicago (CST, -0600)
     NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: no
 Last DST change: DST ended at
                  Sun 2018-11-04 01:59:59 CDT
                  Sun 2018-11-04 01:00:00 CST
 Next DST change: DST begins (the clock jumps one hour forward) at
                  Sun 2019-03-10 01:59:59 CST
                  Sun 2019-03-10 03:00:00 CDT

How to change the TimeZone in RHEL 6/CentOS 6 Systems?

For RHEL/CentOS systems, use the following command to change the timezone.

# unlink /etc/localtime
# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime

Run the following command to check the new timezone in RHEL/CentOS systems.

# date
Tue Feb 19 04:17:00 PST 2019

# ls -lh /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 39 Feb 17 10:45 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles

About Magesh Maruthamuthu

Love to play with all Linux distribution

View all posts by Magesh Maruthamuthu

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