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Fixing Date, Time and Zone on RHEL 6 command line

Had to fix all time related issues on a remote RHEL 6 server which runs without any windowing system. Plain ol' command line. Documenting steps here for future reference:

Check to see if your date and timezone settings are accurate:
# date
# cat /etc/sysconfig/clock

The server I accessed had wrong settings for both the commands. Here are the steps I used to correct:

Find out your timezone from the folder /usr/share/zoneinfo
# ls /usr/share/zoneinfo

Mine was pointing to America/EDT instead of Asia/Calcutta

Update and save the /etc/sysconfig/clock file to
# sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/clock
ZONE="Asia/Calcutta"
UTC=true
ARC=false

Remove the /etc/localtime
# sudo rm /etc/localtime

Create a new soft link to your time zone
# cd /etc
# sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime
# ls -al localtime
Now it should show the link to your time zone

Set your hardware clock to UTC
# sudo hwclock --systohc --utc
# hwclock --show

Update your time from a NTP server (Red Hat NTP server used here)
# sudo ntpdate clock.redhat.com
10 Apr 22:08:27 ntpdate[25695]: adjust time server 66.187.233.4 offset 0.004185 sec

Finally verify the date now
#date --utc
Tue Apr 10 16:39:56 UTC 2012

#date
Tue Apr 10 22:09:58 IST 2012

Add the above ntpdate command in your server startup script or in a cron job to automatically set the system time. The list of ntp servers can be found here: https://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Servers/StratumOneTimeServers
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Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 3, 2012 at 1:53 PM

    Thank you , very helpful

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 21, 2013 at 5:02 PM

    It Me Aman,
    Thank you Very much. its make success my 3 days hard work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. chetankjainJanuary 21, 2013 at 5:39 PM

    Glad you found it useful Aman :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2013 at 9:39 PM

    I think the command should be
    #sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Calcutta /etc/localtime

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. chetankjainJanuary 30, 2013 at 4:53 PM

      Yes you are right .. not sure how that got missed :) .. fixed the omission and thanks!

      Delete
  5. AnonymousApril 19, 2013 at 3:51 PM

    Hey Chetan,

    you saved my day. Thank you very much.

    Daniel

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousMay 16, 2013 at 9:29 PM

    great it works, fine. thanks

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJune 18, 2013 at 6:08 AM

    great!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2013 at 3:17 PM

    Nice guide thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 6, 2014 at 3:04 PM

    thank you very much Chetan

    work great!!

    lideth :D

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousAugust 14, 2014 at 5:38 PM

    Thank you. This really saved my time.

    ReplyDelete
  11. watchescaveSeptember 26, 2015 at 1:55 PM

    Great share !!

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2016 at 4:36 PM

    THANKS SAVED ME HEAPS

    ReplyDelete
  13. ZiemelisOctober 14, 2016 at 6:17 PM

    Thank you, very helpful!

    ReplyDelete

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