Setting the time (GNU Coreutils 9.0)
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21.1.5 Setting the time
If given an argument that does not start with ‘+
’, date
sets the system clock to the date and time specified by that argument (as described below). You must have appropriate privileges to set the system clock. Note for changes to persist across a reboot, the hardware clock may need to be updated from the system clock, which might not happen automatically on your system.
The argument must consist entirely of digits, which have the following meaning:
- ‘
MM
’ - month
- ‘
DD
’ - day within month
- ‘
hh
’ - hour
- ‘
mm
’ - minute
- ‘
CC
’ - first two digits of year (optional)
- ‘
YY
’ - last two digits of year (optional)
- ‘
ss
’ - second (optional)
Note, the --date
and --set
options may not be used with an argument in the above format. The --universal
option may be used with such an argument to indicate that the specified date and time are relative to Universal Time rather than to the local time zone.