Time and Date w. Linux

View Time
To view the current date and time, the following command will be enough

date

Set Time
To change time means to set a new time. To set time in Ubuntu (or any Linux), just run the following command
sudo date newdatetimestring where newdatetimestring has to follow the format nnddhhmmyyyy.ss which is described below:

  • nn is a two digit month, between 01 to 12
  • dd is a two digit day, between 01 and 31, with the regular rules for days according to month and year applying
  • hh is two digit hour, using the 24-hour period so it is between 00 and 23
  • mm is two digit minute, between 00 and 59
  • yyyy is the year; it can be two digit or four digit: your choice. I prefer to use four digit years whenever I can for better clarity and less confusion
  • ss is two digit seconds. Notice the period ‘.’ before the ss.

Let’s say you want to set your computer’s new time to December 6, 2007, 22:43:55, then you would use:

sudo date 120622432007.55