man/localtime.xml

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  Copyright 2010 Lennart Poettering
  Copyright 2012 Shawn Landden

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<refentry id="localtime">
        <refentryinfo>
                <title>localtime</title>
                <productname>systemd</productname>

                <authorgroup>
                        <author>
                                <contrib>Developer</contrib>
                                <firstname>Lennart</firstname>
                                <surname>Poettering</surname>
                                <email>lennart@poettering.net</email>
                        </author>
                        <author>
                                <contrib>Developer</contrib>
                                <firstname>Shawn</firstname>
                                <surname>Landden</surname>
                                <email>shawnlandden@gmail.com</email>
                        </author>
                </authorgroup>
        </refentryinfo>

        <refmeta>
                <refentrytitle>localtime</refentrytitle>
                <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
        </refmeta>

        <refnamediv>
                <refname>localtime</refname>
                <refpurpose>Local timezone configuration file</refpurpose>
        </refnamediv>

        <refsynopsisdiv>
                <para><filename>/etc/localtime</filename> -&gt; <filename>../usr/share/zoneinfo/…</filename></para>
        </refsynopsisdiv>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Description</title>

                <para>The <filename>/etc/localtime</filename> 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
                <filename>/usr/share/zoneinfo/</filename>, followed by
                a timezone identifier such as
                <literal>Europe/Berlin</literal> or
                <literal>Etc/UTC</literal>.  The resulting link should
                lead to the corresponding binary
                <citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>tzfile</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                timezone data for the configured timezone.</para>

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

                <para>The timezone may be overridden for individual
                programs by using the TZ environment variable. See
                <citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>environ</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>

                <para>You may use
                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>timedatectl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                to change the settings of this file from the command
                line during runtime. Use
                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-firstboot</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                to initialize the time zone on mounted (but not
                booted) system images.</para>
        </refsect1>

        <refsect1>
                  <title>See Also</title>
                  <para>
                          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                          <citerefentry project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>tzset</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>localtime</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>timedatectl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-timedated.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                          <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-firstboot</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                  </para>
        </refsect1>

</refentry>