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By default modern Ubuntu versions run the service systemd-timesyncd in the background. It fetches the time at regular intervals and should automatically set your system time when an NTP server is r...
#1: Initial revision
By default modern Ubuntu versions run the service `systemd-timesyncd` in the background. It fetches the time at regular intervals and should automatically set your system time when an NTP server is reachable.
**Setting the time in Ubuntu manually**
Since Ubuntu use systemd, the normal systemd procedure with `timedatectl` is used.
From [`man timedatectl`](https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/timedatectl.1.html):
> **set-time [TIME]**
> 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".
So, to set the time manually just run the command:
sudo timedatectl set-time "2025-01-07 18:17:16"
**Setting the time automatically**
I cant't find a concrete command to trigger an NTP sync, but restarting the `systemd-timesyncd` service should do the trick if you don't want to wait for the automatic sync.
sudo systemctl restart systemd-timesyncd
