Get time in linux command

3 ways to get time in Linux

There are a few different ways to check the time on your Linux machine. The first way is to use the date command. This command displays the current date and time in human-readable format.

The second way is to use the timedatectl command. This command allows you to view and change the system time and date settings.

The third way is to use the hwclock command. This command shows or sets hardware clock information on Linux systems.

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Procedure to check time in Linux

The procedure to get time in Linux is as follows:

• Open the terminal.
• Type date or timedatectl command
• Press Enter to run the command.
• The command output displays the time in human-readable format.

This article is part of the following series.

Get time with date command in Linux

To get the current time using the date command in Linux, simply open a terminal and enter the following command:

Running this command will display the current date and time in the default format.

For example, the output may look like this:

Fri Jun 18 15:30:45 UTC 2023

The date command provides various options to customize the output format. For instance, you can use the %T format specifier to display the time in the HH:MM:SS format.

To format the date command’s output, you can use control characters preceded by a + sign.

Format controls begin with the % symbol and are substituted by their current values.

Here, the %Y character is replaced with the current year,%m with month, and %d with the day of the month:

date +»Year: %Y, Month: %m, Day: %d»
Year: 2022, Month: 04, Day: 16

Here are more examples of time format.
Command: $date «+%D»
Output: 10/11/30
Command: $date «+%D %T»
Output: 10/11/30 16:13:27
Command: $date «+%Y-%m-%d»
Output: 2030-10-11
Command: $date «+%Y/%m/%d»
Output: 2030/10/11

The following are the date format options.

Format Option	Description
%D	Display date as mm/dd/yy.
%d	Display the day of the month (01 to 31).
%a	Displays the abbreviated name for weekdays (Sun to Sat).
%A	Displays full weekdays (Sunday to Saturday).
%h	Displays abbreviated month name (Jan to Dec).
%b	Displays abbreviated month name (Jan to Dec).
%B	Displays full month name (January to December).
%m	Displays the month of the year (01 to 12).
%y	Displays last two digits of the year (00 to 99).
%Y	Display four-digit year.
%T	Display the time in 24-hour format as HH:MM:SS.
%H	Display the hour.
%M	Display the minute.
%S	Display the seconds.

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Get time with timedatectl command in Linux

We can also use timedatectl command to get time in Linux. This command allows you to view and change the system time and date settings.

To use the timedatectl command, type “timedatectl” at the command prompt. This will display the current system time and date settings.

$ timedatectl
Local time: Sat 2022-04-16 13:06:00 GMT
Universal time: Sat 2022-04-16 13:06:00 UTZ
RTC time: Sat 2022-04-16 13:02:34
Time zone: GMT (GMT, +0000)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: yes

To change the system time, use the set-time option. For example, to set the system time to 12:00pm on January 22nd, 2030, you would type the following command:

timedatectl set-time «2030-01-22 12:00:00»

Find time with hwclock command in Linux

We can also check the time in Linux with the hwclock command. This command shows or sets hardware clock information on Linux systems.

The hardware clock is a clock that is set by the BIOS and is used to keep track of the time when the system is turned off. The system time is the time that is set by the operating system and is used when the system is turned on.

To use the hwclock command, type “hwclock” at the command prompt.

This command will show the current date and time stored in the hardware clock. The output will be in a format like this:

To set the system time, use the –set option. For example, to set the system time to 12:00pm on January 22nd, 2019, you would type the following command:

hwclock —set —date «2030-01-22 12:00:00»

Understanding time in Linux

In Linux, time is measured in seconds since the Unix epoch. The Unix epoch is January 1, 1970 UTC. This means that the time on your Linux machine is always relative to this date.

Checking the time on your Linux machine is important for a number of reasons. For example, if you are running a cron job, you will want to make sure that the time is set correctly so that the job will run at the correct time.

Additionally, if you are troubleshooting an issue on your machine, checking the time can be helpful in determining when the issue occurred.

David is a Cloud & DevOps Enthusiast. He has years of experience as a Linux engineer. He had working experience in AMD, EMC. He likes Linux, Python, bash, and more. He is a technical blogger and a Software Engineer. He enjoys sharing his learning and contributing to open-source.

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How can I get the current date and time in the terminal and set a custom command in the terminal for it? [closed]

Closed. This question does not meet Stack Overflow guidelines. It is not currently accepting answers.

This question does not appear to be about a specific programming problem, a software algorithm, or software tools primarily used by programmers. If you believe the question would be on-topic on another Stack Exchange site, you can leave a comment to explain where the question may be able to be answered.

I have to check the time in a Linux terminal. What is the command for getting date and time in a Linux terminal? Is there a way in which we can set a custom function?

This question seems on topic as it relates to a specific computing task on a specific operating system (which is just a software layer itself). As, @drstevens said, this is the first result in Google and it was informative for me needs. If it were off-topic, it would read something like «Do operating systems tell time?» or «What do you guys think about operating systems that tell time.» Stack Overflow is a great resource for beginners and it seems like this was closed as for being too beginner of a question. It should instead just be listed as a beginner question.

StackExchange is the place for answers. This is a good question. Perhaps the question should be migrated, but it should not be closed, in my opinion. This question appeared first in my Google results when I searched for «linux check time».

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Get current time in hours and minutes

I’m trying to collect information from a system and I need to get the current time in hours and minutes. Currently I have:

why use awk? date supports a wide variety of formatting characters and would be happy to generate the EXACT output you want, without extra tools. date +%H:%M

6 Answers 6

Running man date will give all the format options

%a locale's abbreviated weekday name (e.g., Sun) %A locale's full weekday name (e.g., Sunday) %b locale's abbreviated month name (e.g., Jan) %B locale's full month name (e.g., January) %c locale's date and time (e.g., Thu Mar 3 23:05:25 2005) %C century; like %Y, except omit last two digits (e.g., 20) %d day of month (e.g., 01) %D date; same as %m/%d/%y %e day of month, space padded; same as %_d %F full date; same as %Y-%m-%d %g last two digits of year of ISO week number (see %G) %G year of ISO week number (see %V); normally useful only with %V %h same as %b %H hour (00..23) %I hour (01..12) %j day of year (001..366) %k hour, space padded ( 0..23); same as %_H %l hour, space padded ( 1..12); same as %_I %m month (01..12) %M minute (00..59) %n a newline %N nanoseconds (000000000..999999999) %p locale's equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known %P like %p, but lower case %r locale's 12-hour clock time (e.g., 11:11:04 PM) %R 24-hour hour and minute; same as %H:%M %s seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC %S second (00..60) %t a tab %T time; same as %H:%M:%S %u day of week (1..7); 1 is Monday %U week number of year, with Sunday as first day of week (00..53) %V ISO week number, with Monday as first day of week (01..53) %w day of week (0..6); 0 is Sunday %W week number of year, with Monday as first day of week (00..53) %x locale's date representation (e.g., 12/31/99) %X locale's time representation (e.g., 23:13:48) %y last two digits of year (00..99) %Y year %z +hhmm numeric time zone (e.g., -0400) %:z +hh:mm numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00) %::z +hh:mm:ss numeric time zone (e.g., -04:00:00) %. z numeric time zone with : to necessary precision (e.g., -04, +05:30) %Z alphabetic time zone abbreviation (e.g., EDT) 

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