FreeBSD: Set date time and timezone
Q. How do I setup date and time in FreeBSD operating system at a shell prompt?
A. Under FreeBSD you can use date command to display or set date and time. The date command displays the date and time read from the kernel clock. If you just type date command without any options (read as without arguments) the date command display the current date and time only.
Please note that if you are looking Linux specific date command faq, please read this FAQ.
FreeBSD Display todays date
Type date command as follows, to display todays date and time:
$ date
Output:
Thu Feb 9 23:43:19 IST 2006
FreeBSD set date and time
Only the superuser or root user may set the date under FreeBSD. General format of date command is as follows:
date yymmddhhss
Where,
- yy : Year in two digit
- mm : Month (1-12)
- dd : Day (1-31)
- hh : Hours (0..23)
- ss : Seconds
For example following command set date to 12-Jan-2004, 4:27 PM (remember you must be a root user to set date and time)
# date 0401121627
Output:
Mon Jan 12 16:27:00 IST 2004
FreeBSD Setup Timezone
To setup corrct timezone you need to copy your timezone file from /usr/share/zoneinfo directory to /etc/localtime file. Just goto directory:
# cd /usr/share/zoneinfo
Use ls -l command to find out your zonefile.
# ls -l
For example I am in Asia/Culcatta (IST time zone) so I need to copy file as follows:
# cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime
date command and use of environment variable
You can also use TZ environment variable to display date and time according to your timezone. For example to display the current time in California you need to export TZ as follows (assuming that you are using bash shell):
# date
Output:
Fri Feb 10 00:39:59 IST 2006
Now use TZ variable:
# export TZ=America/Los_Angeles
# date
Output:
Thu Feb 9 11:10:08 PST 2006
See also:
Subscribe to our free e-mail newsletter or RSS feed to get all updates.
You can Email this page to a friend.
Related Linux / UNIX FAQ:
- Linux or FreeBSD command to display system time and date
- Howto: Linux server change or setup the timezone
- Linux set date and time from command prompt
- Linux, UNIX set the time zone on a per user basis
- How to format date for display or to use in a shell script
Discussion on This FAQ
Leave a Reply
We encourage your comments, and suggestions. But please stay on topic, be polite, and avoid spam. Please do not use the comment form to ask for help / question. Ask your question on the excellent Linux tech support forum. Thank you very much for stopping by our site!
Tags: clock, current_date, FreeBSD, freebsd_set_date, freebsd_set_time, shell, todays_date ~ Last updated on: September 13, 2007
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:39 am
Good Site.. Keep Up the Good Work. Just wanted to point out that you may confuse a noob by showing this example since you put mm at the end of your sample but in your key you list ss as the second. Probly should tell them its the minute.. Just a FYI I know how it is.. nix people jot things down so fast that they don’t even notice it..
date yymmddhhmm
Where,
yy : Year in two digit
mm : Month (1-12)
dd : Day (1-31)
hh : Hours (0..23)
ss : Seconds
For the new person that didn’t know at the end of the string its the minute .. even though it looks like it asks for the month in this example.
JaY
October 2nd, 2006 at 6:59 am
JaY,
It was typo. The correct syntax is as follows (updated):
date yymmddhhss
Appreciate your post.
October 12th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
That conflicts with the format posted here
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/linux/cmd/cmd.csp?path=d/date
date mmddhhmmyy
October 12th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Gooofy,
This FAQ is about FreeBSD and not about Linux. So the command format is correct and it only works with FreeBSD. Linux specific information:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-set-date-time-from-linux-command-prompt/
October 31st, 2006 at 7:11 am
Your site was really of much help to me. Thanks a million.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
I did major screwup on production server wanting to paste a date change command to a test machine.
just be careful when you test daylight savings, and make sure you do it on a “test” machine not on your NTP server
June 11th, 2007 at 7:55 am
While on a FreeBSD system tried using the Linux format to no avail, before running to google where i found your post.
Thanks for posting, a real help