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timedatectl to control system time on linux

The timedatectl command can be used to set the time-zone and other date and time settings from the command-line in linux (or at least in arch linux)

timedatectl is part of the systemd suit of programs.

Description from the systemd man page:

timedatectl may be used to query and change the system clock and its settings, and enable or disable time synchronization services.

To check time information:

timedatectl status

output:

              Local time: Mon 2021-09-06 08:29:05 IST
          Universal time: Mon 2021-09-06 02:59:05 UTC
                RTC time: Mon 2021-09-06 02:59:05
               Time zone: Asia/Kolkata (IST, +0530)
System clock synchronized: yes
             NTP service: active
         RTC in local TZ: no

To set the time manually:

# time format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
timedatectl set-time "2021-09-06 08:25:26"

To set the time zone:

# setting to IST (Asia/Kolkata)
timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata

You can also look at what time-zones are available:

timedatectl list-timezones

References

• https://www.archlinuxuser.com/2013/01/how-to-set-local-time-on-archlinux.html
• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/timedatectl.html

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