Some times you might be able to execute very complex commands and write pages of shell scripts and yet find your-self in a clueless situation, like the seemingly mundane task of setting the data/time in your Linux box from the command line. Here are a couple of ways that might help –
1. Using /etc/localtime and /usr/share/zoneinfo
Create a link to the file in /usr/share/zoneinfo which contains the time zone you want to set your clock to.
#ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
2. Edit /etc/sysconfig/clock
#vi /etc/sysconfig/clock
-set the “ZONE” variable to your region – like “US/Central”
3. Export command
#Export TZ=America/New_York
4. Simply the date command
format-> #date MMDDhhmmYYYY
#date 070913312010
5. Hardware clock
#hwclock –set –date=”07/09/2010 13:19:55″
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