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manyxcxi
Asked: 2010-09-01 10:19:26 +0800 CST

How to change time-zone settings from the command line

  • 772

I have a virtual machine that is set to PST that a couple of colleagues have in different time-zones.

If I wanted to change the time-zone to EST and GMT, what do I need to do?

command-line time timezone

10 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use timedatectl

    sudo timedatectl set-timezone <timeszone>

    Examples:

    • Timezone as EST

      sudo timedatectl set-timezone EST

    • Timezone as UTC

      sudo timedatectl set-timezone UTC

    • Listing all valid Timezones

      timedatectl list-timezones

    This command is perfect for automation scripts since it doesn't require any user interaction while compared to the other given answer based on dpkg-reconfigure tzdata.

    • 358

  2. As root you have to execute:

    dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

    A menu based tool should be started that allows you to change the timezone.

    • 53

  3. The following also work. For GMT:

    ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

    For EST:

    ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST /etc/localtime
    • 36

  4. The most ease way especially to a server is to list timezones:

    timedatectl list-timezones

    And choose yours, for example:

    timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Athens

    Thats it! , :-)

    • 26

  5. Edit the timezone file at the /etc folder as:

    Etc/GMT

    You can use the next format:

    Region "/" City

    Example of /etc/timezone:

    Europe/Athens

    or

    Europe/Paris
Europe/London

    You may experiment with the: dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and check cat the timezone file.

    You must reboot or start again a service (not the ntp service). I do not know which one. If somebody knows please share with us. (Tested on Ubuntu 15.10 the change is taken into account instantly)

    • 7

  6. To run one program with a different time zone setting, set the TZ environment variable, e.g. run TZ=Pacific/Kiritimati date to see what time it is on Christmas Island, or export TZ=Pacific/Kiritimati to have the setting last for a shell session.

    • 6 
  7. cp -p /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific /etc/localtime

    I recommend AGAINST linking like mentioned by others. If some script accidentally over writes your /etc/localtime file, then it overwrites your Pacific timezone file... and it's a bit of a pain to replace it.

    Just copy the Pacific file over the localtime file with the command above.

    • 6

  8. I use the following script to ask the user which timezone to set, and then confirm it has indeed been set:

    #!/bin/sh
sudo timedatectl set-timezone $(tzselect)
echo
echo timedatectl says:
timedatectl

    I call it tz-set.

    • 2

  9. As root you have to execute:

    ln -fs /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Warsaw /etc/localtime && dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

    • 0

  10. This worked for me on GCP Ubuntu 14 via SSH

    1. sudo su
    2. cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Singapore /etc/localtime
    3. Restart the server
    4. Done
    • 0