localtime(5)

.SH "NAME" localtime - Local timezone configuration file

.SH "SYNOPSIS"

.PP /etc/localtime -> ../usr/share/zoneinfo/...

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.PP The /etc/localtime file configures the system-wide timezone of the local system that is used by applications for presentation to the user. It should be an absolute or relative symbolic link pointing to /usr/share/zoneinfo/, followed by a timezone identifier such as Europe/Berlin or Etc/UTC. The resulting link should lead to the corresponding binary tzfile(5) timezone data for the configured timezone.

.PP Because the timezone identifier is extracted from the symlink target name of /etc/localtime, this file may not be a normal file or hardlink.

.PP If /etc/localtime is missing, the default UTC timezone is used.

.PP The timezone may be overridden for individual programs by using the $TZ environment variable. See environ(7).

.PP You may use timedatectl(1) to change the settings of this file from the command line during runtime. Use systemd-firstboot(1) to initialize the time zone on mounted (but not booted) system images.

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.PP systemd(1), tzset(3), localtime(3), timedatectl(1), systemd-timedated.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)