How to verify the time zone change is correct on AWS EC2 using Ansible?

Question

We can use the following code to set a new timezone on AWS EC2 using Ansible.

---
- hosts: linuxservers proxmoxservers
  remote_user: ansible
  become: yes

  tasks:

  - name: 'Set timezone to Buenos Aires'
    timezone:
      name: America/New_York

  - name: Ansible date fact example
    debug:
      msg="{{ lookup('pipe','date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S') }}"

After this,

• How do we verify if the current timezone is set to the expected value?
• How to validate the timezone has been changed correctly (to the desired value)?

Answer 1

How to validate that ... has been changed correctly (to the desired value)?

Since Ansible is a Configuration Management Tool with which you set a Desired State, such validation is part of the modules in general.

For timezone module – Configure timezone setting

It is recommended to restart crond after changing the timezone, otherwise the jobs may run at the wrong time.

After that you may have a look into one the following

For Linux it can use timedatectl or edit /etc/sysconfig/clock or /etc/timezone and hwclock.

or better (re-)gather Ansible Facts

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: true
  gather_subset:
    - "!all"
    - "!min"
    - "date_time"

  tasks:

  - name: Show Facts date_time
    debug:
      msg: "{{ ansible_date_time }}"

since that will contain the timezone settings or updated timezone settings.

Further Readings

Please take note about

• What is the exact list of Ansible setup min?.
• Using Ansible to verify configurations