Set date and time in raspbian

Problem

My new installation of raspbian stretch had its time off. The easiest way of setting this right I found was using timedatectl.

timedatectl
      Local time: Tue 2018-06-12 18:27:41 UTC
  Universal time: Tue 2018-06-12 18:27:41 UTC
        RTC time: n/a
       Time zone: Etc/UTC (UTC, +0000)
Network time on: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
RTC in local TZ: no

The date was correct but the actual time was off. Checking the output of timedatectl, the time zone was here off, so that was the obvious problem.

Solution

Checking the help of timedatectl quickly led to a resolution.

timedatectl -h
timedatectl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND ...

Query or change system time and date settings.

  -h --help                Show this help message
     --version             Show package version
     --no-pager            Do not pipe output into a pager
     --no-ask-password     Do not prompt for password
  -H --host=[USER@]HOST    Operate on remote host
  -M --machine=CONTAINER   Operate on local container
     --adjust-system-clock Adjust system clock when changing local RTC mode

Commands:
  status                   Show current time settings
  set-time TIME            Set system time
  set-timezone ZONE        Set system time zone
  list-timezones           Show known time zones
  set-local-rtc BOOL       Control whether RTC is in local time
  set-ntp BOOL             Enable or disable network time synchronization

1. List the available timezones that can be set with,
   timedatectl list-timezones
   and scroll through the list to find the correct one.
2. Set your current timezone with,
   timedatectl set-timezone Zone/City

No reboot is required, changes take effect right away.