REDHAT-Configuring the Date and Time

Created OnAugust 11, 2020

Last Updated OnAugust 11, 2020

byadmin

Modern operating systems distinguish between the following two types of clocks:

A real-time clock (RTC), commonly referred to as a hardware clock, (typically an integrated circuit on the system board) that is completely independent of the current state of the operating system and runs even when the computer is shut down.
A system clock, also known as a software clock, that is maintained by the kernel and its initial value is based on the real-time clock. Once the system is booted and the system clock is initialized, the system clock is completely independent of the real-time clock.

The system time is always kept in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and converted in applications to local time as needed. Local time is the actual time in your current time zone, taking into account daylight saving time (DST). The real-time clock can use either UTC or local time. UTC is recommended.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 offers three command line tools that can be used to configure and display information about the system date and time:

The timedatectl utility, which is new in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and is part of systemd.
The traditional date command.
The hwclock utility for accessing the hardware clock.

Using the timedatectl Command

The timedatectl utility is distributed as part of the systemd system and service manager and allows you to review and change the configuration of the system clock. You can use this tool to change the current date and time, set the time zone, or enable automatic synchronization of the system clock with a remote server.

For information on how to display the current date and time in a custom format, see also Section “Using the date Command”.

Displaying the Current Date and Time

To display the current date and time along with detailed information about the configuration of the system and hardware clock, run the timedatectl command with no additional command line options:

timedatectl

This displays the local and universal time, the currently used time zone, the status of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) configuration, and additional information related to DST.

Example 1: Displaying the Current Date and Time

The following is an example output of the timedatectl command on a system that does not use NTP to synchronize the system clock with a remote server:

~]$ timedatectl

      Local time: Mon 2016-09-16 19:30:24 CEST

  Universal time: Mon 2016-09-16 17:30:24 UTC

        Timezone: Europe/Prague (CEST, +0200)

     NTP enabled: no

NTP synchronized: no

 RTC in local TZ: no

      DST active: yes

 Last DST change: DST began at

                  Sun 2016-03-31 01:59:59 CET

                  Sun 2016-03-31 03:00:00 CEST

 Next DST change: DST ends (the clock jumps one hour backwards) at

                  Sun 2016-10-27 02:59:59 CEST

                  Sun 2016-10-27 02:00:00 CET

Important

Changes to the status of chrony or ntpd will not be immediately noticed by timedatectl. If changes to the configuration or status of these tools is made, enter the following command:

~]# systemctl restart systemd-timedated.service

Changing the Current Time

To change the current time, type the following at a shell prompt as root:

timedatectl set-time HH:MM:SS

Replace HH with an hour, MM with a minute, and SS with a second, all typed in two-digit form.

This command updates both the system time and the hardware clock. The result it is similar to using both the date –set and hwclock –systohc commands.

The command will fail if an NTP service is enabled. See Section “Synchronizing the System Clock with a Remote Server” to temporally disable the service.

Example 2: Changing the Current Time

To change the current time to 11:26 p.m., run the following command as root:

~]# timedatectl set-time 23:26:00

By default, the system is configured to use UTC. To configure your system to maintain the clock in the local time, run the timedatectl command with the set-local-rtc option as root:

timedatectl set-local-rtc boolean

To configure your system to maintain the clock in the local time, replace boolean with yes (or, alternatively, y, true, t, or 1). To configure the system to use UTC, replace boolean with no (or, alternatively, n, false, f, or 0). The default option is no.

Changing the Current Date

To change the current date, type the following at a shell prompt as root:

timedatectl set-time YYYY-MM-DD

Replace YYYY with a four-digit year, MM with a two-digit month, and DD with a two-digit day of the month.

Note that changing the date without specifying the current time results in setting the time to 00:00:00.

Example 3: Changing the Current Date

To change the current date to 2 June 2017 and keep the current time (11:26 p.m.), run the following command as root:

~]# timedatectl set-time 2017-06-02 23:26:00

Changing the Time Zone

To list all available time zones, type the following at a shell prompt:

timedatectl list-timezones

To change the currently used time zone, type as root:

timedatectl set-timezone time_zone

Replace time_zone with any of the values listed by the timedatectl list-timezones command.

Example 4: Changing the Time Zone

To identify which time zone is closest to your present location, use the timedatectl command with the list-timezones command line option. For example, to list all available time zones in Europe, type:

~]# timedatectl list-timezones | grep Europe

Europe/Amsterdam

Europe/Andorra

Europe/Athens

Europe/Belgrade

Europe/Berlin

Europe/Bratislava

…

To change the time zone to Europe/Prague, type as root:

~]# timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Prague

Synchronizing the System Clock with a Remote Server

As opposed to the manual adjustments described in the previous sections, the timedatectl command also allows you to enable automatic synchronization of your system clock with a group of remote servers using the NTP protocol. Enabling NTP enables the chronyd or ntpd service, depending on which of them is installed.

The NTP service can be enabled and disabled using a command as follows:

timedatectl set-ntp boolean

To enable your system to synchronize the system clock with a remote NTP server, replace boolean with yes (the default option). To disable this feature, replace boolean with no.

Example 5: Synchronizing the System Clock with a Remote Server

To enable automatic synchronization of the system clock with a remote server, type:

~]# timedatectl set-ntp yes

The command will fail if an NTP service is not installed.