timedatectl: Control the system time and date

SYNOPSIS

timedatectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}

DESCRIPTION

timedatectl may be used to query and change the system clock and its settings.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

--no-ask-password

Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.

--adjust-system-clock

If set-local-rtc is invoked and this option is passed, the system clock is synchronized from the RTC again, taking the new setting into account. Otherwise, the RTC is synchronized from the system clock.

-H, --host=

Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a container name, separated by ":", which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.

-M, --machine=

Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.

-h, --help

Print a short help text and exit.

--version

Print a short version string and exit.

--no-pager

Do not pipe output into a pager.

The following commands are understood:

status

Show current settings of the system clock and RTC.

set-time [TIME]

Set the system clock to the specified time. This will also update the RTC time accordingly. The time may be specified in the format "2012-10-30 18:17:16".

set-timezone [TIMEZONE]

Set the system time zone to the specified value. Available timezones can be listed with list-timezones. If the RTC is configured to be in the local time, this will also update the RTC time. This call will alter the /etc/localtime symlink. See localtime(5) for more information.

list-timezones

List available time zones, one per line. Entries from the list can be set as the system timezone with set-timezone.

set-local-rtc [BOOL]

Takes a boolean argument. If "0", the system is configured to maintain the RTC in universal time. If "1", it will maintain the RTC in local time instead. Note that maintaining the RTC in the local timezone is not fully supported and will create various problems with time zone changes and daylight saving adjustments. If at all possible, keep the RTC in UTC mode. Note that invoking this will also synchronize the RTC from the system clock, unless --adjust-system-clock is passed (see above). This command will change the 3rd line of /etc/adjtime, as documented in hwclock(8).

set-ntp [BOOL]

Takes a boolean argument. Controls whether NTP based network time synchronization is enabled (if available).

EXIT STATUS

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

ENVIRONMENT

$SYSTEMD_PAGER

Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. Setting this to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.

$SYSTEMD_LESS

Override the default options passed to less ("FRSXMK").

EXAMPLES

Show current settings:

$ timedatectl
      Local time: Fri, 2012-11-02 09:26:46 CET
  Universal time: Fri, 2012-11-02 08:26:46 UTC
        RTC time: Fri, 2012-11-02 08:26:45
        Timezone: Europe/Warsaw
      UTC offset: +0100
     NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: no
 Last DST change: CEST → CET, DST became inactive
                  Sun, 2012-10-28 02:59:59 CEST
                  Sun, 2012-10-28 02:00:00 CET
 Next DST change: CET → CEST, DST will become active
                  the clock will jump one hour forward
                  Sun, 2013-03-31 01:59:59 CET
                  Sun, 2013-03-31 03:00:00 CEST

Enable an NTP daemon (chronyd):

$ timedatectl set-ntp true
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-ntp ===
Authentication is required to control whether network time synchronization shall be enabled.
Authenticating as: user
Password: ********
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===

$ systemctl status chronyd.service
chronyd.service - NTP client/server
          Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service; enabled)
          Active: active (running) since Fri, 2012-11-02 09:36:25 CET; 5s ago
...

RELATED TO timedatectl…

systemd(1), hwclock(8), date(1), localtime(5), systemctl(1), systemd-timedated.service(8)

timedatectl (1)