Server timezone configuration

Getting the timezone right isn't just a housekeeping detail — it directly affects your logs, cron jobs, email delivery, database timestamps, and caching behavior. A mismatched timezone can cause subtle bugs that are genuinely painful to track down.

1. Setting the timezone for PHP

Option A — via .htaccess

Drop this line into the .htaccess file in your site's root directory:

php_value date.timezone "Europe/Moscow"

Swap Europe/Moscow for whatever timezone fits your setup.

Option B — via php.ini

Open your php.ini (either through your control panel or over SSH) and add or update the following line:

date.timezone = "Europe/Moscow"

Again, replace Europe/Moscow as needed. Once you've saved the file, restart PHP-FPM or your web server for the change to take effect.

The full list of supported timezone identifiers is available in the official PHP documentation.

2. Setting the system-wide timezone (Ubuntu 20.04 / 22.04 / 24.04)

For server-level timezone changes, timedatectl is your go-to tool.

1. Check what timezone is currently set:

   timedatectl status

2. Browse the list of available timezones:

   timedatectl list-timezones

Narrow it down with grep if you know what you're looking for:

   timedatectl list-timezones | grep Moscow

3. Apply your timezone of choice:

   sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Moscow

4. Confirm the change took effect:

   timedatectl status

Or just check the system date:

   date

A few things worth knowing

• If you're running cPanel, aaPanel, or CloudPanel, it's often easier to set the PHP timezone directly through the panel's UI — look for MultiPHP Manager or the PHP configuration section.
• For Laravel, Symfony, and most other frameworks, you'll also need to set the timezone in your app's own config file — typically config/app.php.
• Here's the full reference list of timezone identifiers you can use:

Africa/Cairo
Africa/Casablanca
Africa/Harare
Africa/Monrovia
Africa/Nairobi
America/Bogota
America/Buenos_Aires
America/Caracas
America/Chihuahua
America/La_Paz
America/Lima
America/Mazatlan
America/Mexico_City
America/Monterrey
America/Santiago
America/Tijuana
Asia/Almaty
Asia/Baghdad
Asia/Baku
Asia/Bangkok
Asia/Chongqing
Asia/Dhaka
Asia/Hong_Kong
Asia/Irkutsk
Asia/Jakarta
Asia/Jerusalem
Asia/Kabul
Asia/Karachi
Asia/Kathmandu
Asia/Kolkata
Asia/Krasnoyarsk
Asia/Kuala_Lumpur
Asia/Kuwait
Asia/Magadan
Asia/Muscat
Asia/Novosibirsk
Asia/Riyadh
Asia/Seoul
Asia/Singapore
Asia/Taipei
Asia/Tashkent
Asia/Tbilisi
Asia/Tehran
Asia/Tokyo
Asia/Ulaanbaatar
Asia/Urumqi
Asia/Vladivostok
Asia/Yakutsk
Asia/Yekaterinburg
Asia/Yerevan
Atlantic/Azores
Atlantic/Cape_Verde
Atlantic/Stanley
Australia/Adelaide
Australia/Brisbane
Australia/Canberra
Australia/Darwin
Australia/Hobart
Australia/Melbourne
Australia/Perth
Australia/Sydney
Canada/Atlantic
Canada/Newfoundland
Canada/Saskatchewan
Europe/Amsterdam
Europe/Athens
Europe/Belgrade
Europe/Berlin
Europe/Bratislava
Europe/Brussels
Europe/Bucharest
Europe/Budapest
Europe/Copenhagen
Europe/Dublin
Europe/Helsinki
Europe/Istanbul
Europe/Kiev
Europe/Lisbon
Europe/Ljubljana
Europe/London
Europe/Madrid
Europe/Minsk
Europe/Moscow
Europe/Paris
Europe/Prague
Europe/Riga
Europe/Rome
Europe/Sarajevo
Europe/Skopje
Europe/Sofia
Europe/Stockholm
Europe/Tallinn
Europe/Vienna
Europe/Vilnius
Europe/Volgograd
Europe/Warsaw
Europe/Zagreb
Greenland
Pacific/Auckland
Pacific/Fiji
Pacific/Guam
Pacific/Midway
Pacific/Port_Moresby
US/Alaska
US/Arizona
US/Central
US/Eastern
US/East-Indiana
US/Hawaii
US/Mountain
US/Pacific
US/Samoa