How To Change TimeZone on CentOS 8

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

To check your current TimeZone

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

timedatectl

Output:

[root@vps ~]# timedatectl
               Local time: Wed 2021-03-17 10:56:07 EDT
           Universal time: Wed 2021-03-17 14:56:07 UTC
                 RTC time: Wed 2021-03-17 14:56:07
                Time zone: America/New_York (EDT, -0400)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

The TimeZone configuration on CentOS 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@vps ~]# ls -l /etc/localtime
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 38 Dec 28 20:09 /etc/localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York

Listing TimeZones

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

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@vps ~]# timedatectl set-timezone Africa/Dakar
[root@vps ~]# timedatectl
               Local time: Wed 2021-03-17 14:59:21 GMT
           Universal time: Wed 2021-03-17 14:59:21 UTC
                 RTC time: Wed 2021-03-17 14:59:21
                Time zone: Africa/Dakar (GMT, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no