How To Change TimeZone on Rocky Linux 8

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In this wiki article, we will learn how to change the timezone in Rocky Linux 8 using the timedatectl command.

To check your current TimeZone

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To get detailed information your CentOS date, time, and timezone you use the timedatectl command.

timedatectl

Output:

[root@server ~]# timedatectl
               Local time: Mon 2021-05-17 23:40:48 EDT
           Universal time: Tue 2021-05-18 03:40:48 UTC
                 RTC time: Tue 2021-05-18 03:40:48
                Time zone: America/New_York (EDT, -0400)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

The TimeZone configuration on Rocky Linux 8 OS is stored set by the /etc/localtime file. This file is actually a symbolic link to a timezone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo.

To get a basic view of the timezone you can ls the file to it’s symbolic link.

ls -l /etc/localtime

Output:

[root@server ~]# ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 38 May 17 21:42 /etc/localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

Listing TimeZones

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Using timedatectl command to list TimeZones,

timedatectl list-timezones

Output:

[root@vps ~]# timedatectl list-timezones
Africa/Abidjan
Africa/Accra
Africa/Addis_Ababa
Africa/Algiers
Africa/Asmara
Africa/Bamako
Africa/Bangui
Africa/Banjul
Africa/Bissau
Africa/Blantyre
Africa/Brazzaville
Africa/Bujumbura
Africa/Cairo
Africa/Casablanca

Set your Preferred TimeZone

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Once you have the list of timezones, you can set the one you prefer.

timedatectl set-timezone your_time_zone

Example:

root@vps:~# timedatectl set-timezone Africa/Dakar

To confirm your changes were applied by running the timedatactl command.

timedatectl

Output:

[root@server ~]# timedatectl
               Local time: Tue 2021-05-18 03:42:50 GMT
           Universal time: Tue 2021-05-18 03:42:50 UTC
                 RTC time: Tue 2021-05-18 03:42:50
                Time zone: Africa/Dakar (GMT, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no