TIMEDATECTL(1)

NAME
timedatectl - control the system time and date

SYNOPSIS
timedatectl [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGUMENT]

DESCRIPTION
timedatectl is a Bash client used to query and change the system clock, the system timezone, and the settings related to the real-time clock (RTC) and NTP time synchronization.

It communicates with the timedated daemon over the system D-Bus, using the org.freedesktop.timedate1 interface. It is intended as a drop-in replacement for the systemd tool of the same name on distributions that do not use systemd.

Most query commands work as an ordinary user. Commands that change a setting are authorized through PolKit; depending on the system policy, members of the privileged group (by default wheel) may be allowed to perform them without entering a password, while other users are asked to authenticate.

COMMANDS

status
    Show the current time settings in human-readable form, including local time, universal time, RTC time, timezone, and the NTP and RTC flags. This is the default command when none is given.

show
    Show the same settings in a machine-readable key=value format.

set-timezone ZONE
    Set the system timezone to ZONE, for example Europe/Athens. Use list-timezones to see the available values.

set-local-rtc [0|1]
    Control whether the RTC is kept in local time (1) or in UTC (0). Keeping the RTC in UTC is generally recommended.

set-ntp [0|1]
    Enable (1) or disable (0) NTP-based automatic time synchronization. Enabling starts and enables the NTP daemon; disabling stops and disables it.

set-time TIME
    Set the system clock manually to TIME, for example '2026-05-31 20:30:00'. NTP must be disabled first (see set-ntp). The command asks for interactive confirmation before changing the clock.

list-timezones
    List all available timezones, one per line.

sync-now
    Force an immediate time synchronization. This works even when automatic mode is disabled: it performs a one-shot synchronization (using ntpdate, falling back to a one-shot ntpd run), updates the RTC from the corrected system clock, and restarts the NTP daemon only if it was already running. This command must be run as root.

OPTIONS

-h, --help
    Show a short usage summary and exit.

EXAMPLES

Show the current status:

        timedatectl status

Change the timezone:

        timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Athens

Set the clock manually (NTP must be off):

        timedatectl set-ntp 0
        timedatectl set-time '2026-05-31 20:30:00'

Recover the correct time afterwards:

        sudo timedatectl sync-now

EXIT STATUS
Returns 0 on success and 1 on error (for example, an invalid argument, a failed D-Bus call, or insufficient privileges).

FILES

/etc/localtime
    Symlink to the active timezone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo.

/etc/hardwareclock
    Indicates whether the RTC is kept in local time or UTC.

/etc/adjtime
    Adjtime configuration used by the RTC handling.

SEE ALSO
timedated(8), hwclock(8), ntpd(8), date(1)

AUTHOR
Bash client written by Ioannis Anagnostakis (rizitis).

Part of the timedated project, a fork of the original Timedate Daemon by Andrey V. Kosteltsev.

LICENSE
This program is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. See the source for copying conditions.