RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 change timezone

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This artcile offers instructions on how to change or set timezone on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 server or GNOME workstation using the command line tool timedatectl.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to retrieve current timezone.
  • How to change/set timezone.

Changing timezone on RHEL 8 Server/Workstation

Changing timezone on RHEL 8 Server/Workstation.

Software Requirements and Conventions Used

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions
Category Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
Software N/A
Other Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command
$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

How to change timezone on Redhat 8 step by step instructions

  1. Check the current timezone settings. To do so execute the timedatectl command without any additional options or arguments: 
    $ timedatectl
               Local time: Mon 2018-11-26 13:57:59 EST
           Universal time: Mon 2018-11-26 18:57:59 UTC
                 RTC time: Sat 2018-11-17 03:44:16
                Time zone: America/New_York (EST, -0500)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no
  2. List all available timezones using the timedatectl command. Use the grep command to search for a specific string, eg. country or city: 
    $ timedatectl list-timezones | grep -i europe  
Europe/Amsterdam
Europe/Andorra
Europe/Astrakhan
Europe/Athens
Europe/Belgrade
Europe/Berlin
Europe/Bratislava
...
Europe/Volgograd
Europe/Warsaw
Europe/Zagreb
Europe/Zaporozhye
Europe/Zurich

    Take a note of the selected timezone.

  3. Using the timedatectl command set the new timezone. As an administrator user executing the below command will set the timezone to eg.Europe/Bratislava: 
    $ su
# timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Bratislava
  4. In the last step confirm the correct new timezone settings: 
    $ timedatectl 
               Local time: Mon 2018-11-26 20:05:17 CET
           Universal time: Mon 2018-11-26 19:05:17 UTC
                 RTC time: Sat 2018-11-17 03:51:34
                Time zone: Europe/Bratislava (CET, +0100)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

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