Configure Date and Time

Configure timezone and time synchronization on your VPS

Correct date and time settings are important for logs, scheduled tasks, and applications.

Prerequisites

• A VPS with OnetSolutions
• SSH access to your server

Setting the Timezone

Interactive Method

Run the timezone configuration wizard:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Follow the on-screen prompts to select your region and timezone.

Command Line Method

Set the timezone directly:

sudo timedatectl set-timezone Europe/Paris

Replace Europe/Paris with your desired timezone.

List all available timezones:

timedatectl list-timezones

Common timezone values: Europe/Paris, Europe/London, America/New_York, Asia/Tokyo, UTC

Time Synchronization (NTP)

Debian/Ubuntu

Install and configure NTP:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ntp ntpdate -y

Sync time immediately:

sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org

Using systemd-timesyncd

Enable time synchronization:

sudo timedatectl set-ntp true

PHP Timezone Configuration

To set the timezone for PHP applications:

1. Find the PHP config file

   find /etc/ -name php.ini -type f
   
2. Edit the configuration

   Open the php.ini file and add or modify:

   date.timezone = "Europe/Paris"
   
3. Restart web server

   sudo systemctl restart apache2
   # or
   sudo systemctl restart php-fpm
   

Verify Settings

Check current date, time, and timezone:

timedatectl