Change time with date linux

Set Time/Date/Timezone in Ubuntu Linux

Time is an important aspect in Linux systems especially in critical services such as cron jobs. Having the correct time on the server ensures that the server operates in a healthy environment that consists of distributed systems and maintains accuracy in the workplace.

In this tutorial, we will focus on how to set time/date/time zone and to synchronize the server clock with your Ubuntu Linux machine.

Check Current Time

You can verify the current time and date using the date and the timedatectl commands. These linux commands can be executed straight from the terminal as a regular user or as a superuser. The commands are handy usefulness of the two commands is seen when you want to correct a wrong time from the command line.

Using the date command

Log in as a root user and use the command as follows

Output

You can also use the same command to check a date 2 days ago

Output

Using timedatectl command

Checking on the status of the time on your system as well as the present time settings, use the command timedatectl as shown

Changing Time

We use the timedatectl to change system time using the format HH:MM: SS. HH stands for the hour in 24-hour format, MM stands for minutes and SS for seconds.

Setting the time to 09:08:07 use the command as follows (using the timedatectl)

using date command

Changing time means all the system processes are running on the same clock putting the desktop and server at the same time. From the command line, use date command as follows

Where,
• 10: Hour (hh)
• 13: Minute (mm)
• 13: Second (ss)

To change the locale to either AM or PM use the %p in the following format.

Change Date

Generally, you want your system date and time is set automatically. If for some reason you have to change it manually using date command, we can use this command :

It will set your current date and time of your system into ‘January 25, 2014′ and ’09:17:00 AM’. Please note, that you must have root privilege to do this.

You can use timedatectl to set the time and the date respectively. The accepted format is ‘YYYY-MM-DD’, ‘YYYY’ represents the year, ‘MM’ the month in two digits and ‘DD’ for the day in two digits.

Changing the date to ’15 January 2019′, you should use the following command:

Create custom date format

To create custom date format, use a plus sign (+)

%D format follows Year/Month/Day format.

You can also put the day name if you want. Here are some examples :

List/Change time zone

Changing the time zone is crucial when you want to ensure that everything synchronizes with the Network Time Protocol. The first thing to do is to list all the region’s time zones using the list-time zones option or grep to make the command easy to understand

The above command will present a scrollable format.

Recommended timezone for servers is UTC as it doesn’t have daylight savings. If you know, the specific time zones set it using the name using the following command

To display timezone execute

Set the Local-rtc

The Real-time clock (RTC) which is also referred to as the hardware clock is independent of the operating system and continues to run even when the server is shut down.

Use the following command

In addition, the following command for the local time

Check/Change CMOS Time

The computer CMOS battery will automatically synchronize time with system clock as long as the CMOS is working correctly.

Use the hwclock command to check the CMOS date as follows

To synchronize the CMOS date with system date use the following format

Conclusion

To have the correct time for your Linux environment is critical because many operations depend on it. Such operations include logging events and cron jobs as well.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment.

Источник

How To: Change time/date in linux from Command Prompt

Before starting this tutorial, let me clarify one thing that changing the time/date and changing a timezone are two different things. If you are looking for changing the Timezone then refer to this article: Change Timezone in Linux/Unix.

Changing the date and time:

Please note that you can change the time and date by graphical tool also but what I am explaining here is doing all that with command line.

In every system, there are two clocks which comes into action while setting the time, one is hardware clock and the other is linux (OS) clock. The hardware clock determines the system clock on system boot. While the system is running, changes to one of these doesn’t affect the other. Normally you can follow any procedure, like first update one clock and then sync it with the other but it is always advised to first update the hardware clock and then let the linux clock sync it with it at the next reboot. Changing the system clock by using the date program on a running system could cause date discontinuities and consequently problems. Down here, I will be discussing both ways.

For viewing/changing the time, we can use “date” command.

Changing time from “date” command is the easiest part. Simply copy paste the output of the date command and change the values you wanted to and then set it.

But this is something which doesn’t work in all flavors. For ex, flavors like freebsd work in different ways. To change time/date in freebsd is a little bit confusing but very much easy. You just need to use “date” command followed by the month, day, hour, minute, and year all numeric and no spaces.

If you will be using ntpd, you probably don’t need to set either of these clocks (unless the current time is more than 1000s off the real time). Just setup ntpd and let ntpd adjust the time (it will do it in small steps to keep system timestamps reliable).

Redhat Systems: Using the dateconfig tool will update both the system clock and the hardware clock. The dateconfig tool also allows you to setup ntpd, which will keep the system clock in sync with a remote server.

Only change time not date:

To only set the time use like this:

Update Hardware clock:

To sync the hardware clock to the current system clock:

Set Hardware clock manually:

Earlier i told you that better idea is to set the hardware clock and then let the OS clock sync with that.

To know the current time of the hardware clock:

To set the hw clock manually:

Everytime you use the hwclock –set command, it will create or edit the file /etc/adjtime to determine the systematic drift. Once you have some history, you can use the –adjust option to adjust the hardware clock appropriately. Run as a cron job if you want the clock to adjust automatically on a regular schedule. Don’t use the –adjust function when using ntpd since ntpd will turn the “11 minute mode” on, which is best left alone. See the hwclock manpage for more info.

Now you can leave the OS clock to sync it with the hardware clock on the next reboot or else you can do it manually now:

Using NTP (Network Time Protocol):

NTP will connect to the servers to get the atomic time. To use NTP, simply download and install it, and use the ntpdate command to sync your time with the NTP servers.

Now update the hardware clock also.

To keep your system always updated you can create a cronjob which could run on daily basis and put this:

Источник

Set Time, Date Timezone in Linux from Command Line or Gnome | Use ntp

Written by Guillermo Garron
Date: 2012-04-19 15:55:00 00:00

To have the correct time and date in Linux is very important, a lot of things depends on it. It does not matter if you are using Linux to power your personal computer or you have a Linux server. The server and system clock needs to be on time.

Set date from the command line

Set time from the command line

Set time and date from the command line

Linux check date from command line

Will show you something like this:

Set hardware clock

The hardware clock is the clock that runs in you PC hardware even if you disconnect it from the main power supply. This is because it has a lithium battery in the modern computers and another type of battery in the old ones.

We’ll see differences between hardware clock and system clock

Will output something like this:

Now check the system clock

Will output something like this:

Let’s set the hardware clock to local time:

If you want to set it to UTC time use:

Set the timezone

To set the timezone of your system clock do the following:

Choose the right timezone for you.

Automatically adjust your computer clock

To have your system to automatically adjust time we need to install ntp . Get it from your repository. Once installed you can configure it this way:

Edit the file /etc/ntpd.conf . It will look like this:

Be sure to start the daemon, and to make it start automatically when the system boots.

On Arch Linux is: /etc/rc.d/ntpd start on Debian and derivatives /etc/init.d/ntpd start

Update from the command line against a time server

You can update the clock manually, without the need of the daemon with ntpdate

You will get something like this:

Bonus: Set the time and Date on Gnome

If you are using Gnome right click on the clock and select adjust, or go to: System > Administration > Time and Date (You may be asked for root password)

You will see a window similar to this one:

If you enjoyed the article, please share it

Источник

Linux Set Date and Time From a Command Prompt

H ow can I set the system date and time from the command prompt (bash shell)? I don’t have GUI installed and I am login over ssh session. How can I set date under Linux operating systems?

Use the date command to display the current date and time or set the system date / time over ssh session. You can also run the date command from X terminal as root user.

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	2m

This is useful if the Linux server time and/or date is wrong, and you need to set it to new values from the shell prompt.

You must login as root user to use date command.

Linux Display Current Date and Time

Just type the date command:
$ date
Sample outputs:

Linux Display The Hardware Clock (RTC)

Type the following hwclock command to read the Hardware Clock and display the time on screen:
# hwclock -r
OR
# hwclock —show
$ sudo hwclock —show —verbose

OR show it in Coordinated Universal time (UTC):
# hwclock —show —utc
Sample outputs:

Linux Set Date Command Example

Use the following syntax to set new data and time:
date —set=»STRING»
For example, set new data to 2 Oct 2006 18:00:00, type the following command as root user:
# date -s «2 OCT 2006 18:00:00»
OR
# date —set=»2 OCT 2006 18:00:00″
You can also simplify format using following syntax:
# date +%Y%m%d -s «20081128»

Linux Set Time Examples

To set time use the following syntax:
# date +%T -s «10:13:13»
Where,

Use %p locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM, enter:
# date +%T%p -s «6:10:30AM»
# date +%T%p -s «12:10:30PM»

How do I set the Hardware Clock to the current System Time?

Use the following syntax:
# hwclock —systohc
OR
# hwclock -w

A note about systemd based Linux system

With systemd based system you need to use the timedatectl command to set or view the current date and time. Most modern distro such as RHEL/CentOS v.7.x+, Fedora Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux and other systemd based system need to the timedatectl utility. Please note that the above command should work on modern system too.

timedatectl: Display the current date and time

Type the following command:
$ timedatectl

Fig.01: Systemd Linux timedatecetl command to display the current date and time

How do I change the current date using the timedatectl command?

To change the current date, type the following command as root user:
# timedatectl set-time YYYY-MM-DD
OR
$ sudo timedatectl set-time YYYY-MM-DD
For example set the current date to 2015-12-01 (1st, Dec, 2015):
# timedatectl set-time ‘2015-12-01’
# timedatectl
Sample outputs:

To change both the date and time, use the following syntax:
# timedatectl set-time YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
Where,

1. HH : An hour.
2. MM : A minute.
3. SS : A second, all typed in two-digit form.
4. YYYY: A four-digit year.
5. MM : A two-digit month.
6. DD: A two-digit day of the month.

For example, set the date ’23rd Nov 2015′ and time to ‘8:10:40 am’, enter:
# timedatectl set-time ‘2015-11-23 08:10:40’
# date

• No ads and tracking
• In-depth guides for developers and sysadmins at Opensourceflare✨
• Join my Patreon to support independent content creators and start reading latest guides:
  • How to set up Redis sentinel cluster on Ubuntu or Debian Linux
  • How To Set Up SSH Keys With YubiKey as two-factor authentication (U2F/FIDO2)
  • How to set up Mariadb Galera cluster on Ubuntu or Debian Linux
  • A podman tutorial for beginners – part I (run Linux containers without Docker and in daemonless mode)
  • How to protect Linux against rogue USB devices using USBGuard

Join Patreon ➔

How do I set the current time only?

The syntax is:
# timedatectl set-time HH:MM:SS
# timedatectl set-time ’10:42:43′
# date
Sample outputs:

How do I set the time zone using timedatectl command?

To see list all available time zones, enter:
$ timedatectl list-timezones
$ timedatectl list-timezones | more
$ timedatectl list-timezones | grep -i asia
$ timedatectl list-timezones | grep America/New
To set the time zone to ‘Asia/Kolkata’, enter:
# timedatectl set-timezone ‘Asia/Kolkata’
Verify it:
# timedatectl

How do I synchronizing the system clock with a remote server using NTP?

Simply type the following command:
# timedatectl set-ntp yes
Verify it:
$ timedatectl
Sample outputs:

Conclusion

Linux users can use date command to print or set the system date and time. Systemd based Linux users can use timedatectl to control the system time and date.

• You can also set new timzone using this mini-howto.
• Man pages – timedatectl(8)

🐧 Get the latest tutorials on Linux, Open Source & DevOps via

Источник