Setting your local time zone

The shell and utilities assume that the times stored in the file system and returned by the operating system are stored using the Greenwich mean time (Greenwich mean time) or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as a universal reference. In the system-wide /etc/profile, the TZ environment variable maps that reference time to the local time specified with the variable. You can use a different time zone by setting the TZ variable in your .profile.

The three primary fields in the time zone specification are:

  1. The local standard time, abbreviated—for example, EST or MSEZ.
  2. The time offset west from the universal reference time, typically specified in hours (minutes and seconds are optional). A minus sign (-) indicates an offset east of the universal reference time.
  3. The Daylight Saving Time zone, abbreviated—for example, EDT. If this and the first field are identical or this value is missing, Daylight Saving Time conversion is disabled. Optionally, you can specify an additional rule that indicates when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends.
For example, if you want to set your time zone to Eastern Standard Time (EST) and export it, specify: 
export TZ="EST5EDT"
  • EST is Eastern Standard Time, the local time zone.
  • The standard time zone is 5 hours west of the universal reference time.
  • EDT is Eastern Daylight Saving Time zone.
For more information about how to specify the local time zone, see Format of the TZ environment variable in z/OS UNIX System Services Command Reference.