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Time & Locale: Set Timezone, Locale, and NTP to Spec

EasyRHCSA Prep15-25 min
The brief

A freshly provisioned host came up with the wrong regional settings and no time synchronization — a routine RHCSA fix. Your assigned values are in /root/case/assignment.env (TIMEZONE, LOCALE, NTP_SERVER); read them and bring the system into compliance.

Three tasks:

1. Set the system timezone to TIMEZONE. timedatectl set-timezone <zone> repoints /etc/localtime at the matching file under /usr/share/zoneinfo.

2. Set the system locale to LOCALE in /etc/locale.conf (LANG=<locale>). localectl set-locale LANG=<locale> writes that file.

3. Point the time-sync client at NTP_SERVER. This host's client is systemd-timesyncd: set an uncommented NTP= line under [Time] in /etc/systemd/timesyncd.conf — that file is what's graded for this task (on RHEL, chrony's server directive in /etc/chrony.conf is the equivalent, but configuring chrony here won't count).

Grading checks the resulting configuration state, so it doesn't matter whether you use the timedatectl/localectl tools or edit the files directly.

What you'll do
  • Read the per-session assignment and set the system timezone to match
  • Set the system-wide locale (LANG) in /etc/locale.conf
  • Configure the systemd-timesyncd NTP client to use the assigned server
  • Understand that these tools simply manage /etc/localtime, /etc/locale.conf, and timesyncd.conf

Hands-on lab: you work on a real Linux box in your browser, graded on the machine's actual state.