Change Timezone of the Linux server

To change the timezone in Linux, you can use the timedatectl command. You can use the list-timezones option to see a list of all available timezones, and then use the set-timezone option to set the desired timezone. For example, to set the timezone to America/New_York, you would run the command timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York. You can also use the date command to check the current time after you’ve set the timezone.

You can also do the setup by manually editing the related OS files.

In the below example we are setting the timezone to US Eastern:

Switch to root:

$ sudo su -

Take backup of the localtime file:

# cp /etc/localtime /etc/localtime_bkp_02112020
# date

Remove the localtime file:

# cd /etc
# ls -trl localtime*
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 25 Sep 17 00:27 localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 118 Nov 2 13:24 localtime_bkp_02112020
# rm localtime
rm: remove symbolic link ‘localtime’? y

Create new Softlink to point to correct timezone

# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern /etc/localtime

# ls -trl localtime*
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 118 Nov 2 08:24 localtime_bkp_02112020
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 30 Nov 2 08:25 localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern

[root@server etc]# date

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Brijesh Gogia

I’m an experienced Cloud/Oracle Applications/DBA Architect with more than 15 years of full-time DBA/Architect experience. I have gained wide knowledge on Oracle and Non-Oracle software stack running on-prem and on Cloud and have worked on several big projects for multi-national companies. I enjoy working with leading-edge technology and have a passion for Cloud architecture, automation, database performance, and stability. Thankfully my work allows me time for researching new technologies (and to write about them).

Change Timezone of the Linux server

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