Reading log files that are from another time zone can add an additional (and unnecessary) layer to your troubleshooting headache. Most of the servers that I touch are on the Eastern seaboard and thus, depending on the earth’s tilt, the offset can vary (thanks UTC!). To resolve this on CentOS, check out the following two commands:

Make a backup of the current time zone (by moving it):
sudo mv /etc/localtime /etc/localtime.bak

Create a link between desired time zone and /etc/localtime:
sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime

Now run date to verify the changes took.

That’s it!

Source: Change Timezone In Centos