How To Change Timezone on CentOS 8

In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the timezone on CentOS 8. For those of you who didn’t know, By default, when a server is provisioned a default timezone will get configured automatically with the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). On CentOS, the system’s timezone is set during the installation, but it can be easily changed at a later time.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step setting of the correct timezone on a CentOS 8.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: CentOS 8.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Change Timezone on CentOS 8

Step 1. First, let’s start by ensuring your system is up-to-date.

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install epel-release

Step 2. Check Current Timezone.

To get detailed information on your CentOS server’s date, time, and timezone you use the timedatectl command:

timedatectl

Output:

Local time: Sat 2021-04-21 21:44:22 UTC
Universal time: Sat 2021-04-21 21:46:22 UTC
RTC time: Sat 2021-04-21 21:30:33
Time zone: UTC (UTC, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no

Step 3. Set or Change Timezone on CentOS 8.

To list all available time zones, you can either list the files in the /usr/share/zoneinfo the directory or use the timedatectl a command like below:

timedatectl list-timezones | grep -i europe

Output:

...
Europe/London
Europe/Luxembourg
Europe/Madrid
....
Europe/Moscow
Europe/Oslo
Europe/Paris
Europe/German
Europe/Prague
Europe/Riga
Europe/Rome

Once you identify which time zone is accurate to your location, run the following command as sudo user by indicating your time zone:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/German

After that, run the timedatectl command to verify the changes:

timedatectl

Output:

Local time: Sat 2021-04-21 22:44:22 UTC
Universal time: Sat 2021-04-21 22:46:22 UTC
RTC time: Sat 2021-04-21 22:30:33
Time zone: Europe/German (EDT, -0400)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no

Congratulations! You have successfully changed the timezone. Thanks for using this tutorial set or changing the timezone on your CentOS 8 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official CentOS website.