Changing the DATE or TIME on a LINUX box
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I discovered the time was off by a number of minutes
on one of my servers. The server in question manages website hosting using Ensim
WEBppliance Pro 3.5.10 on a Red Hat Linux 7.3 system. To say I am far less
familiar with Linux than with windows would be an understatement.
The set of instructions below worked quickly and
easily for me from the bash (command) prompt on my Linux machines running:
Red Hat Linux
release 5.2
(Apollo)
Kernel 2.0.36
on an i486 |
and |
Red Hat Linux
release 7.3
(Valhalla)
Kernel 2.4.20-20.7
on an i586
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Under most configurations, you must be logged on as
"root" to make this change. You can log on locally (physically at the
Linux box) as root. However, if you must perform this remotely (over a network
or the Internet), you need to first log on to the machine under a user that will
allow you to log on remotely. Then "switch user" to "root"
by typing "su" at the prompt and pressing enter. When prompted, type
root's password and press enter.
To change the time from the bash prompt, as root, use
the "date" command. Typing "date" by itself will return the
date, time, and year. Typing "date MMDDhhmmCCYY" will allow you to set
any part of the date or time.
Linux Examples:
Login to Linux box as root and enter root's password:
[me@mybox me]$ su
password:
Check the current date and time of the Linux box by
entering:
[root@mybox me]# date
Linux yields the current settings:
[root@mybox me]# Wed Apr 7 12:03:45 EDT 2004
Change the current time and date of the Linux box by
entering:
[root@mybox me]# date 040713032004
would change the time and yield:
[root@mybox me]$ Wed Apr 7 13:03:00 EDT 2004
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