How to change your CentOS server timezone

Timezone data (tzdata) is stored in /usr/share/zoneinfo.

To change your CentOS server’s timezone, simply run the following command based up on the examples below:

Example 1: set time zone to Melbourne, Australia

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Australia/Melbourne /etc/localtime

Example 2: set time zone to UTC

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /etc/localtime

To confirm the time set on your system, run the date command, example:

date
Thu Jul 26 09:53:11 EST 2012

If you want to sync this time to your hardware (BIOS) clock, run the following command:

hwclock --systohc