# Change instance timezone on startup

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Created:** [October 12, 2011, 9:06am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725 "2011-10-12T09:06:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jay\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c89c15/32.png) [@Jay\_Charles](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jay_Charles)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 9:06am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725/1 "2011-10-12T09:06:11Z")

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Hi All,

I’m facing a situation where I need to ensure that all of my EC2 instances are using eastern time regardless of which region the instance is started in.

Is there a way I can reconfigure the OS clock through a startup script, before Wowza starts up?

Thanks,

Jay

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**Author:** ![Charlie\_Good](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.wowza.com/charlie_good/32/383_2.png) [@Charlie\_Good](https://community.wowza.com/u/Charlie_Good)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 6:24am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725/2 "2011-10-12T06:24:23Z")

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Look at the startup package system described in EC2 user’s guide. You can run a script on server launch.

Charlie

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**Author:** ![Ian\_Beyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@Ian\_Beyer](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ian_Beyer)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 8:26am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725/3 "2011-10-12T08:26:43Z")

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Yup - put a short script in your package’s scripts folder that contains the following command:

```auto
#!/bin/bash
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/EST5EDT /etc/localtime

```

and then call the script from the startup.xml:

```auto
                <RunScript>
                        <Script>scripts/set_tz.sh</Script>
                </RunScript>

```

Some good info here on setting timezones in Linux (the EC2 Wowza image is based on Fedora/Red Hat): [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-linux-unix-change-setup-timezone-tz-variable/](http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-linux-unix-change-setup-timezone-tz-variable/)

-Ian

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**Author:** ![Jay\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c89c15/32.png) [@Jay\_Charles](https://community.wowza.com/u/Jay_Charles)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 9:30am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/change-instance-timezone-on-startup/34725/4 "2011-10-12T09:30:53Z")

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Right on. Thanks for the help Ian.