Setting your time zone

In /etc the file, localtime, is a link to or copy of a file containing information about your time zone. Zone information files are usually in /usr/share/zoneinfo but this depends on your distribution. So if your localtime file points to a zone info file that is not your time zone you can change it by browsing the directories in /usr/share/zoneinfo to find your country, then find your city or a city in the same time zone and link localtime to it.

$ ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles /etc/localtime

Changing the date and time

Changing the date and time requires two steps. First, Linux's date and time must be changed and then the new time has to be written to the hardware clock.
The date command can be used for both viewing and changing the date and time.





To change the time use date followed by the month, day, hour, minute, and year all numeric and no spaces. So, to set the date and time to November 2nd, 2003 12:57





The hardware clock can be updated in UTC (coordinated universal time) or your local time. It is standard practice to update it in UTC.





To update it to your local time leave off the --utc or add --localtime and leave off the --utc.





Alternatively
The date and time can be changed directly to the hardware clock and then used to update the system clock.