Change Timezone on RHEL5/CentOS System

linuxredhattimezone

How do I change the timezone on a RHEL5 system? I'm reading the instructions here – http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-linux-unix-change-setup-timezone-tz-variable/

But they seem very bold (altering the /etc/localtime file).

Is this an acceptable practice (steps from link below):

Generic procedure to change timezone
Change directory to /etc
# cd /etc
Create a symlink to file localtime:
# ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST localtime

Best Answer

Yes, this is exactly what I did to an RHEL5 box two days ago, and it worked fine (with the difference that I hard-linked the file, not soft-linked, but I don't see there should be much difference).

If there is already a localtime file in place it is perhaps best to move the old one aside and put the new one in place in one operation:

cd /etc; mv localtime localtime.orig; ln /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST localtime
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