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Accepted
dandan
Asked: 2016-07-25 02:27:04 +0800 CST

Red hat Linux + TIME ZONE CONFIGURATION + details from clock file

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In order to configure the Time Zone on red hat Linux machine ( version 5 and 6 ) need to configure the file:

/etc/sysconfig/clock

And create a symbolic link between 

/etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

but /etc/sysconfig/clock also required to set the ZONE variable as the following example:

ZONE="America/New_York"

So what is the need to set the variable ZONE=America/New_York when it is very clear from the link /etc/localtime that is pointed to /usr/share/zoneinfo/**America/New_York** ?

So what is the need to set the ZONE parameter with "America/New_York" value ?

linux redhat timezone clock-synchronization date

2 Answers

  1. With the introduction of RHEL 7 the timezone is managed through systemd, which provides a custom utility to change the timezone: timedatectl

    To list all available time zones:

    timedatectl list-timezones

    To actually change the time zone, (as root or using sudo): 

    timedatectl set-timezone time_zone

    timedatectl set-timezone will not only make the modified time zone take effect immediately, but will also update the /etc/localtime symlink to make that change persistent across reboots.

    • 8
  2. Best Answer

    So the "correct" way to set the clock (at least prior to RHEL 7) is to edit /etc/sysconfig/clock and then run tzdata-update which will then update /etc/localtime; you've just done that step manually.

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