timedatectl

systemd

timedatectl

Control the system time and date

timedatectl

OPTIONS

COMMAND

Description

timedatectl may be used to query and change the system clock and its settings, and enable or disable time synchronization services.

Use systemd-firstboot(1) to initialize the system time zone for mounted (but not booted) system images.

timedatectl may be used to show the current status of time synchronization services, for example systemd-timesyncd.service(8).

Commands

The following commands are understood:

status
Show current settings of the system clock and RTC, including whether network time synchronization is active. If no command is specified, this is the implied default.

show
Show the same information as status, but in machine readable form. This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=.

set-time [TIME]
Set the system clock to the specified timestamp. This will also update the RTC time accordingly. The timestamp may be specified in the format 2012-10-30 18:17:16. See systemd.time(7) for more details about acceptable timestamp format.

set-timezone [TIMEZONE]
Set the system time zone to the specified value. Available timezones can be listed with list-timezones. If the RTC is configured to be in the local time, this will also update the RTC time. This call will alter the /etc/localtime symlink. See localtime(5) for more information.

list-timezones
List available time zones, one per line. Entries from the list can be set as the system timezone with set-timezone.

set-local-rtc [BOOL]
Takes a boolean argument. If 0, the system is configured to maintain the RTC in universal time. If 1, it will maintain the RTC in local time instead. Note that maintaining the RTC in the local timezone is not fully supported and will create various problems with time zone changes and daylight saving adjustments. If at all possible, keep the RTC in UTC mode. Note that invoking this will also synchronize the RTC from the system clock, unless --adjust-system-clock is passed (see above). This command will change the 3rd line of /etc/adjtime, as documented in hwclock(8).

set-ntp [BOOL]
Takes a boolean argument. Controls whether network time synchronization is active and enabled (if available). If the argument is true, this enables and starts the first existing network synchronization service. If the argument is false, then this disables and stops the known network synchronization services. The way that the list of services is built is described in systemd-timedated.service(8).

systemd-timesyncd Commands

The following commands are specific to systemd-timesyncd.service(8).

timesync-status
Show current status of systemd-timesyncd.service(8). If --monitor is specified, then this will monitor the status updates.

show-timesync
Show the same information as timesync-status, but in machine readable form. This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use timesync-status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=.

ntp-servers INTERFACE SERVER…
Set the interface specific NTP servers. This command can be used only when the interface is managed by systemd-networkd.

revert INTERFACE
Revert the interface specific NTP servers. This command can be used only when the interface is managed by systemd-networkd.

Options

The following options are understood:

--adjust-system-clock
If set-local-rtc is invoked and this option is passed, the system clock is synchronized from the RTC again, taking the new setting into account. Otherwise, the RTC is synchronized from the system clock.

--monitor
If timesync-status is invoked and this option is passed, then timedatectl monitors the status of systemd-timesyncd.service(8) and updates the outputs. Use Ctrl+C to terminate the monitoring.

-a; --all
When showing properties of systemd-timesyncd.service(8), show all properties regardless of whether they are set or not.

-p; --property=
When showing properties of systemd-timesyncd.service(8), limit display to certain properties as specified as argument. If not specified, all set properties are shown. The argument should be a property name, such as ServerName. If specified more than once, all properties with the specified names are shown.

--value
When printing properties with show-timesync, only print the value, and skip the property name and =.

-P

Exit status

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

Examples

Show current settings:

$ timedatectl
               Local time: Thu 2017-09-21 16:08:56 CEST
           Universal time: Thu 2017-09-21 14:08:56 UTC
                 RTC time: Thu 2017-09-21 14:08:56
                Time zone: Europe/Warsaw (CEST, +0200)
System clock synchronized: yes
              NTP service: active
          RTC in local TZ: no

Enable network time synchronization:

$ timedatectl set-ntp true
==== AUTHENTICATING FOR org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-ntp ===
Authentication is required to control whether network time synchronization shall be enabled.
Authenticating as: user
Password: ********
==== AUTHENTICATION COMPLETE ===

$ systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service
● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mo 2015-03-30 14:20:38 CEST; 5s ago
     Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8)
 Main PID: 595 (systemd-timesyn)
   Status: "Using Time Server 216.239.38.15:123 (time4.google.com)."
   CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-timesyncd.service
           └─595 /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd
…

Show current status of systemd-timesyncd.service(8):

$ timedatectl timesync-status
       Server: 216.239.38.15 (time4.google.com)
Poll interval: 1min 4s (min: 32s; max 34min 8s)
         Leap: normal
      Version: 4
      Stratum: 1
    Reference: GPS
    Precision: 1us (-20)
Root distance: 335us (max: 5s)
       Offset: +316us
        Delay: 349us
       Jitter: 0
 Packet count: 1
    Frequency: -8.802ppm