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There are different methods to change timezone in Linux based Linux distribution being used. Let’s start the tutorial with CentOS/RHEL.

Change timezone in Linux (CentOS/RHEL)

Timezone in CentOS, Redhat & other RHEL based OS like amazon Linux, Oracle Linux, Scientific Linux is maintained by the file ‘/etc/localtime’. Files for all timezones are stored at location ‘/usr/share/zoneinfo/’.

So in order to change timezone in Linux, we first need to remove the file ‘/etc/localtime’ & create a soft link to the timezone file in ‘/usr/share/zoneinfo/’. To see the current timezone file associated with /etc/localtime, use the following command,

# ls -l /etc/localtime

Next, we can check all the timezone available to use,

# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/

Let’s check all the timezones that are available in Asia,

# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia

Of these mentioned timezones, we will be switching from Jakarta to Kolkata. So we will start by removing the current localtime file,

# rm /etc/localtime

Next, we need to create a soft link to required time zone i.e. Asia/Kolkata,

# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata /etc/localtime

That’s it, we can now check the time on the timezone using ‘date’ command.

Change timezone in Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

For Debian & Ubuntu-based Linux system, the process is a bit different than the RHEL based systems. For Ubuntu & Debian, timezone is controlled by the file ‘/etc/timezone’. To check the current timezone, we can use the following command,

# cat /etc/timezone

Asia/Jakarta

Now to change the timezone we have to edit the file & mention the required timezone,

# vi /etc/timezone

Asia/Kolkata

That’s it, our timezone will be updated. We can also set the timezone using the environment variable named ‘TZ’,

# export TZ=Asia/Kolkata

We now end this tutorial on how to change timezone in Linux. Please do send us your suggestions, queries, questions using the comment box below.

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