Changing the timezone in RHEL 5.4 (CentOS)

[Bohlingt]

Greetings, All

My apologies if this thread topic has already been somewhat discussed, I tried searching this Forums room for "hits" associated with my issue but could not find anything

Issue:

*Trying to change some Linux severs timezone from EDT to GMT remotely
*Unable to run "system-config-date" tool from command line

Date:
Mon Apr 5 09:31:10 EDT 2010

cat /etc/sysconfig/clock:
ZONE="America/New_York"
UTC=true
ARC=false

cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Tikanga)

[HROAdmin26]

Unable to run "system-config-date" tool from command line

Uhh....why?

Google: how to change timezone "rhel 5"

[Bohlingt]

Not real sure why ...

This worked:

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

so, thanks.

[Mudgen]

Not real sure why ...

This worked:

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

so, thanks.

Better to soft-link it:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

That will automatically pick up changes to the tzdata package.

[clowenstein]

Better to soft-link it:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/GMT /etc/localtime

That will automatically pick up changes to the tzdata package.

Yes but GMT isn't going to have any changes ever. No daylight time changes, no displacement in longitude.

[anandkumargupta]

Hi Team,

I am using system-config-date to achieve that.

[alf55]

Uhh....why?

Google: how to change timezone "rhel 5"

Please note that the "system-config-XXXXXX" command require that the machine that you wish to run on must have X and the GUI portion being used by python installed (it does not need to be running) and you need to to be connecting to the remote via "ssh" with "X Forwarding" active. But a simpler solution is to edit the configuration file:

vim /etc/sysconfig/clock

[Mudgen]

Yes but GMT isn't going to have any changes ever. No daylight time changes, no displacement in longitude.

I'll wager you're right, but since the Royal Greenwich Observatory is no longer in Greenwich (move to Cambridge), who knows....

Soft-linking localtime is just a good practice, probably moot in the UT1/GMT case.

[Mudgen]

Please note that the "system-config-XXXXXX" command require that the machine that you wish to run on must have X and the GUI portion being used by python installed (it does not need to be running) and you need to to be connecting to the remote via "ssh" with "X Forwarding" active. But a simpler solution is to edit the configuration file:

vim /etc/sysconfig/clock

Actually, the ZONE in /etc/sysconfig/clock is ONLY used by system-config-date, at least in Centos5/RHEL5/current versions of Fedora. Editing it does not change the system zone. The default file in Fedora actually contains the remarks:

$ cat /etc/sysconfig/clock
# The ZONE parameter is only evaluated by system-config-date.
# The time zone of the system is defined by the contents of /etc/localtime.
ZONE="America/New York"

[HROAdmin26]

Please note that the "system-config-XXXXXX" command require that the machine that you wish to run on must have X and the GUI portion being used by python installed (it does not need to be running) and you need to to be connecting to the remote via "ssh" with "X Forwarding" active.

No, it doesn't. Without X installed or running, an ncurses-type interface is used that looks like this.

Greyhairweenie has pointed out the rest of the bad info in your post.