using the date command

[Bruce Cran]

Brian A. Seklecki wrote:
> To set time:
>
> $ sudo /usr/sbin/ntpdate pool.ntp.org
> 29 Sep 23:48:31 ntpdate[9404]: adjust time server 66.250.45.2 offset
> 0.001289 sec
>   
ntpdate is deprecated, you should use "ntpd -q" instead if you want ntpd 
to set the time once then exit.  From ntpdate(8):

Note: The functionality of this program is now available in the ntpd(8)
     program.  See the -q command line option in the ntpd(8) page.  After a
     suitable period of mourning, the ntpdate utility is to be retired from
     this distribution.

Also, ntpd wil refuse to update the time if the delta is more than 1000s 
by default, but you can use the -g option to override this.   To set the 
date to within a reasonable delta, use something like "date 
200709282027".  If you want to set the time more accurately using NTP, 
edit /etc/ntp.conf and add "server pool.ntp.org" to it.  Save it then 
run "ntpd -q".  If you need to configure the time zone, an easy way to 
do this is to run sysinstall and select "Configuration --> Time Zone".
> To date info about your timezone settings:
>
> $ zdump /etc/localtime 
> /etc/localtime  Sat Sep 29 23:49:19 2007 EDT
>
> Options:
>
> $ ls /usr/shaoneinfo/ | egrep -v "^d"
> total 78
> -rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    755 Aug 22 11:11 CET
> -rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    837 Aug 22 11:11 CST6CDT
> -rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    679 Aug 22 11:11 EET
> -rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel     56 Aug 22 11:11 EST
> -rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel    837 Aug 22 11:11 EST5EDT
> [...]
>
> To set timezone:
>
> $ ln -s /share/zoneinfo/$WHATEVER /etc/localtime
>
> For you probably PST8PDT.
>
> For your best NTP experience, use OpenNTP from
> ports: /usr/ports/net/openntpd/
>
> ~BAS
>
>
>
> On Sat, 2007-09-29 at 20:33 -0700, jekillen wrote:
>   
>> Hello all;
>> I have built 4 machines and installed FreeBSD 6.0 in one and 6.2
>> in the other three. They are all using the wrong date and time.
>> The last one (v6.2 on ecs mb with AMD64) is the worst. It is telling
>> me today is Jan 3 2003 PST (I am on the west coast and it is still PDT).
>> These machines are all web servers. So up until now this has not been
>> a big issue but a configuration of software is complaining that the 
>> files
>> it creates have an older date than the files in the software bundle,
>> it is time to do something about it. So I am looking at man date and as
>> I interpret the instructions #date ccyymmddHHMM.ss  (20079282027.00 or
>> 200709282027.00 for instance) is supposed to set the
>> clock to the current date. But when I run a command with the
>> current date and time in the above format I get the complaint that
>> the format string is wrong.
>> Can anyone be kind enough to give me a quick tutorial on this?
>> I will be looking seriously into using NTP, but for now I need to
>> get the date straight. I have entries in apache error log gener
>> ated by php scripts that are supposed to use its date command.
>> Thanks in advance for assistance.
>> Jeff K
>>