How to Change Time in Kali Linux

Kali Linux is a popular Debian-based Linux distribution used for pen-testing and ethical hacking. It is developed and maintained by an American cybersecurity firm, Offensive Security. Kali Linux comes pre-installed with various tools and software required for penetration testing and ethical hacking, which makes it popular among cybersecurity professionals and enthusiasts.

If you are new to Kali Linux and your distro is showing the wrong time? Or your system clock has a different time zone. Then this article is here to fix that. In this article, we will cover the steps to change time and time zones in Kali Linux using the Graphical user interface and also using the command line. So let's begin!

How to Change Time in Kali Linux using GUI?

Changing the time and the timezone in Kali Linux is an easy task. Here are the step-by-step procedures to change time in Kali Linux:

Step 1: Open clock settings

To open time settings, right-click on the time in the top bar of the Kali Linux desktop. Then click on the properties from the menu. It will open a new window with settings related to date and time.

Step 2: Select Change time and date

From the clock properties, click on the Time and Date settings as shown in the below image.

Step 3: Unlock time editing

Now you can see the window opened up with the Time and Date settings. But the options to change time and timezone are locked. By default, a user cannot change time without root privileges. So to unlock the settings, click on the unlock button on the bottom part of the window. It will ask the user to enter the root password.

Step 4: Enter the password

Enter the password in the popup asking for the password and click on the "Authenticate" button.

Step 5: Set the time

Now all the settings are unlocked and you can set your desired time. You can also set the Time zone and date in the same window.

How to change Time in Kali Linux using the command line?

An alternate way to change time in Kali Linux is using the command line. It takes only a single line command to change the time using the terminal. The following command is used to change time in Kali Linux.

sudo date -s "01 JAN 2024 12:00:00"

Open the terminal in Kali Linux and enter the above command. Don't forget to change the time to the desired time. Then press 'Enter' to execute the command. It will ask the user to enter the sudo password, so enter the password and press "Enter" to set the time.

That's how you can set the time in your Kali Linux system.

Conclusion

A new Kali Linux user may find it difficult to locate the time settings and change the time. In this article, we discussed two different step-by-step methods to change the time in Kali Linux. I hope the article was helpful and feel free to share your thoughts about it in the comments!