Date & Time

To configure time zone, date, and optionally settings for network time, select Date & Time at the Installation Summary screen.

There are three ways for you to select a time zone:

  • Using your mouse, click on the interactive map to select a specific city. A red pin appears indicating your selection.

  • You can also scroll through the Region and City drop-down menus at the top of the screen to select your time zone.

  • Select Etc at the bottom of the Region drop-down menu, then select your time zone in the next menu adjusted to GMT/UTC, for example GMT+1.

If your city is not available on the map or in the drop-down menu, select the nearest major city in the same time zone. Alternatively you can use a Kickstart file, which will allow you to specify some additional time zones which are not available in the graphical interface. See the timezone command in timezone (required) for details.

The list of available cities and regions comes from the Time Zone Database (tzdata) public domain, which is maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). CentOS cannot add cities or regions into this database. You can find more information at the official website, available at http://www.iana.org/time-zones.

Specify a time zone even if you plan to use NTP (Network Time Protocol) to maintain the accuracy of the system clock.

Time zone configuration screen.
Figure 1. Time zone configuration screen

If you are connected to the network, the Network Time switch will be enabled. To set the date and time using NTP, leave the Network Time switch in the ON position and click the configuration icon to select which NTP servers CentOS should use. To set the date and time manually, move the switch to the OFF position. The system clock should use your time zone selection to display the correct date and time at the bottom of the screen. If they are still incorrect, adjust them manually.

Note that NTP servers might be unavailable at the time of installation. In such a case, enabling them will not set the time automatically. When the servers become available, the date and time will update.

Once you have made your selection, click Done to return to the Installation Summary screen.

To change your time zone configuration after you have completed the installation, visit the Date & Time section of the Settings dialog window.