Setting date and time on Debian and Ubuntu

The Linux date command can take several formats to set the system date andtime.

Here’s the format that I use when setting the date and the time:

mmddHHiiYYYY.ss

where,

mm = month
 dd = day of month
 HH = hour in 24 hour format
 ii = minutes
 ss = seconds

The following is an example usage using the date and time, 22nd May 2012, 11:57am, respectively:

$ sudo date&nbsp_place_holder;052211572012.00

If only the time needs to be set then use the -s flag as follows:

$ sudo date&nbsp_place_holder;-s&nbsp_place_holder;"11:57:00"

If the system’s time zone requires changing, then on Debian-based systems use:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Tags: Linux