How to change the time zone in Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS 7) ​

To modify the time zone, you need to use the root user or a user with sudo privileges.

Check the current time zone ​

In modern Linux like Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS, the current time zone can be checked using the following command.

timedatectl

The output is as follows.

Local time: Wed 2021-11-06 22:43:42 UTC
  Universal time: Wed 2021-11-06 22:43:42 UTC
        RTC time: Wed 2021-11-06 22:43:42
       Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
     NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: yes
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: n/a

As you can see from the above output, the time zone currently in use is UTC.

Another way to check the current time zone is to check the /etc/localtime file, which is a soft-linked file that points to the time zone file currently in use.

ls -l /etc/localtime

The output is as follows.

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 29 Dec 11 09:25 /etc/localtime -> . /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC

Again, you can see that the UTC time zone is currently in use.

Modify time zone ​

First check the list of currently available time zones.

timedatectl list-timezones

The output is as follows.

...
America/Tijuana
America/Toronto
America/Tortola
America/Vancouver
America/Whitehorse
America/Winnipeg
...

Next you can set the time zone, using the following command.

timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Shanghai

Note: You may need sudo privileges to execute the above command. sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Shanghai

In the above example we set the timezone to China Standard Time Asia/Shanghai.

To recheck the current time zone.

timedatectl

The output is as follows.

Local time: three 2021-11-10 09:34:45 CST
  Universal time: three 2021-11-10 01:34:45 UTC
        RTC time: 三 2021-11-10 09:34:44
       Time zone: Asia/Shanghai (CST, +0800)
     NTP enabled: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
 RTC in local TZ: yes
      DST active: n/a

The time zone can also be modified by using the softlink method.

rm /etc/localtime
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Shanghai /etc/localtime

Note: You may need sudo privileges to execute the above command. sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Shanghai

Summary ​

Modern Linux has made it very easy to change time zones, just use timedatectl. Of course you can also modify the time zone in a more traditional way, by using a softlink.