Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.

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.

Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a container name, separated by ":", which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.

Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.

Print a short help text and exit.

Print a short version string and exit.

Do not pipe output into a pager.

Show current settings of the system clock and RTC.

Set the system clock to the specified time. This will also update the RTC time accordingly. The time may be specified in the format "2012-10-30 18:17:16".

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

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).

Takes a boolean argument. Controls whether NTP based network time synchronization is enabled (if available).

Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. Setting this to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.

Override the default options passed to less ("FRSXMK").

$ timedatectl


      Local time: Fri, 2012-11-02 09:26:46 CET


  Universal time: Fri, 2012-11-02 08:26:46 UTC


  RTC time: Fri, 2012-11-02 08:26:45


  Timezone: Europe/Warsaw


      UTC offset: +0100


     NTP enabled: no
NTP synchronized: no


 RTC in local TZ: no


      DST active: no


 Last DST change: CEST → CET, DST became inactive


      Sun, 2012-10-28 02:59:59 CEST


      Sun, 2012-10-28 02:00:00 CET


 Next DST change: CET → CEST, DST will become active


      the clock will jump one hour forward


      Sun, 2013-03-31 01:59:59 CET


      Sun, 2013-03-31 03:00:00 CEST

$ 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 chronyd.service
chronyd.service - NTP client/server


    Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/chronyd.service; enabled)


    Active: active (running) since Fri, 2012-11-02 09:36:25 CET; 5s ago
...