How do I setup date and time under FreeBSD operating system using a shell prompt?
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 yymmddhhmmss
Where,
- yy : Year in two digit
- mm : Month (1-12)
- dd : Day (1-31)
- hh : Hours (0..23)
- mm : Minutes (0..59)
- ss : Seconds (0..61)
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 Set Time Without Modifying The Date
Type the following command to sets the time to 4:30 PM:
# date 1630
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:
- How to: FreeBSD Setup Time / Clock Synchronization with NTP server
- Linux set date and time from command prompt
- Email FAQ to a friend
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- Last Updated: 3-5-09
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
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
JaY,
It was typo. The correct syntax is as follows (updated):
date yymmddhhss
Appreciate your post.
That conflicts with the format posted here
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/linux/cmd/cmd.csp?path=d/date
date mmddhhmmyy
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/
Your site was really of much help to me. Thanks a million.
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 :)
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
Very big thanks.
It’s very useful. I was seek this info on many of russian sites, but only your blog is help me :)
So thanxxx again
You should correct the format it isn’t
“date yymmddhhSS”
it is
“date yymmddhhMM”
The last two digits will be the minutes, not the seconds.
date yymmddhh.ss
The key is the period before “.ss”