How To Change Timezone on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the timezone on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know,  Ubuntu server users, the time zone by default is not set. However, desktop users with an active Internet connection may automatically set up this. Providing correct Timezone information is essential for performing different system-related tasks. Also, when you set up automatic corn jobs that depend upon the Timezone of your system, providing inaccurate information can cause problems.

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 the step-by-step change of the timezone on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• 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 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Check the Current Timezone.

Run the following command below to check the current Timezone on your Ubuntu:

timedatectl

To view the details related to the current Timezone, execute the following “ls” command:

ls -l /etc/localtime

Output:

Local time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57 UTC
           Universal time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57 UTC
                 RTC time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57
                Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Step 3. Change the Timezone on Ubuntu 22.04.

First, you will need to find the region and city format:

timedatectl list-timezones

You will see a list of regions with city names. Utilize the keyboard “up” And “down” keyboard keys to find out the required Timezone.

Output:

Asia/Aden
Asia/Almaty
Asia/Amman
Asia/Anadyr
Asia/Jakarta
...
...
...
Pacific/Rarotonga
Pacific/Saipan
Pacific/Tahiti
Pacific/Tarawa

Once you have found your time zone use the below format to set up your own time zone:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone your_time_zone

For example:

timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Jakarta

Now, verify the added changes by executing the simple “timedatectl” command:

timedatectl

Output:

Local time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57 UTC
           Universal time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57 UTC
                 RTC time: Mon 2022-05-20 19:50:57
                Time zone: Asia/Jakarta (PDT, +0700)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Congratulations! You have successfully changed the timezone. Thanks for using this tutorial to configure or set up your own timezone on the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Ubuntu website.