timedatectl

TLDR

Show current time and date settings

$ timedatectl

Set local time directly

$ timedatectl set-time "2024-01-15 14:30:00"

List available timezones

$ timedatectl list-timezones

Set system timezone

$ timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York

Enable NTP synchronization

$ timedatectl set-ntp on

Set hardware clock to local time

$ timedatectl set-local-rtc 1

SYNOPSIS

timedatectl [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

DESCRIPTION

timedatectl queries and changes the system clock and its settings. It controls the system time, timezone, and network time synchronization through systemd-timedated.

PARAMETERS

--no-pager

Do not pipe output into a pager

--no-ask-password

Do not prompt for password

-H, --host

Execute operation on remote host

-M, --machine

Execute operation on container

-p, --property

Show specific property

--value

Show only property values

COMMANDS

status

Show current time/date settings (default command)

show

Show properties in machine-readable format

set-time TIME

Set system time (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format)

set-timezone ZONE

Set system timezone

list-timezones

List available timezones

set-local-rtc BOOL

Control RTC in local time (0=UTC, 1=local)

set-ntp BOOL

Enable or disable NTP synchronization

timesync-status

Show status of systemd-timesyncd

CAVEATS

Setting time manually (set-time) disables NTP synchronization. RTC in local time (set-local-rtc 1) can cause issues with dual-boot systems during DST changes.

HISTORY

timedatectl is part of systemd, introduced to provide a unified interface for time/date management replacing older tools like hwclock and tzselect.