Configure localtime. dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

I'm assuming you want to change the timezone by one shell command.

Do you have timedatectl on your system?

If so:

timedatectl status will show your current settings.

timedatectl list-timezones shows available timezones.

timedatectl set-timezone Antarctica/Mawson sets it.

Note: If the RTC is configured to be in the local time, this will also update the RTC time.

Is there true way without user ncurses interface?

echo Antarctica/Mawson >/etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata

Yes, you can create one shell command:

sh -c 'echo Antarctica/Mawson >/etc/timezone && dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata'

:)

There is a bug in tzdata: certain values get normalized by dpkg-reconfigure:

echo 'US/Central' >/etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata
# Current default time zone: 'America/Chicago'

echo 'US/Eastern' >/etc/timezone
apt-get install --reinstall tzdata
# Current default time zone: 'America/New_York'