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NAME | DESCRIPTION | DISPLAYING TIME SPANS | PARSING TIME SPANS | DISPLAYING TIMESTAMPS | PARSING TIMESTAMPS | CALENDAR EVENTS | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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SYSTEMD.TIME(7) systemd.time SYSTEMD.TIME(7)
systemd.time - Time and date specifications
In systemd, timestamps, time spans, and calendar events are
displayed and may be specified in closely related syntaxes.
Time spans refer to time durations. On display, systemd will
present time spans as a space-separated series of time values each
suffixed by a time unit. Example:
2h 30min
All specified time values are meant to be added up. The above
hence refers to 150 minutes. Display is locale-independent, only
English names for the time units are used.
When parsing, systemd will accept the same time span syntax.
Separating spaces may be omitted. The following time units are
understood:
• usec, us, μs
• msec, ms
• seconds, second, sec, s
• minutes, minute, min, m
• hours, hour, hr, h
• days, day, d
• weeks, week, w
• months, month, M (defined as 30.44 days)
• years, year, y (defined as 365.25 days)
If no time unit is specified, generally seconds are assumed, but
some exceptions exist and are marked as such. In a few cases "ns",
"nsec" is accepted too, where the granularity of the time span
permits this. Parsing is generally locale-independent, non-English
names for the time units are not accepted.
Examples for valid time span specifications:
2 h
2hours
48hr
1y 12month
55s500ms
300ms20s 5day
One can use the timespan command of systemd-analyze(1) to
normalise a textual time span for testing and validation purposes.
Internally, systemd generally operates with microsecond time
granularity, while the default time unit in user-configurable time
spans is usually seconds (see above). This disparity becomes
visible when comparing the same settings in the (high-level) unit
file syntax with the matching (more low-level) D-Bus properties
(which are what systemctl(1)'s show command displays). The former
typically are suffixed with "...Sec" to indicate the default unit
of seconds, the latter are typically suffixed with "...USec" to
indicate the underlying low-level time unit, even if they both
encapsulate the very same settings.
Timestamps refer to specific, unique points in time. On display,
systemd will format these in the local timezone as follows:
Fri 2012-11-23 23:02:15 CET
The weekday is printed in the abbreviated English language form.
The formatting is locale-independent.
In some cases timestamps are shown in the UTC timezone instead of
the local timezone, which is indicated via the "UTC" timezone
specifier in the output.
In some cases timestamps are shown with microsecond granularity.
In this case, the sub-second remainder is separated by a full stop
from the seconds component.
When parsing, systemd will accept a similar syntax, but some
fields can be omitted, and the space between the date and time can
be replaced with a "T" (à la the RFC 3339[1] profile of ISO 8601);
thus, in CET, the following are all identical: "Fri 2012-11-23
23:02:15 CET", "Fri 2012-11-23T23:02:15", "2012-11-23T23:02:15
CET", "2012-11-23 23:02:15".
The timezone defaults to the current timezone if not specified
explicitly. It may be given after a space, like above, in which
case it can be: "UTC", an entry in the installed IANA timezone
database (e.g. "CET", "Asia/Tokyo", where the complete list can
be obtained with timedatectl list-timezones (see timedatectl(1))),
or "±05", "±0530", "±05:30", "Z".
It may also be affixed directly to the timestamp, in which case it
must correspond to one of the formats defined in the RFC 3339[1]
profile of ISO 8601: "±05:30" or "Z". Thus, the following are also
identical to the above: "2012-11-23T23:02:15+01:00", "2012-11-23
22:02:15Z".
A timestamp can start with a field containing a weekday, which can
be in an abbreviated ("Wed") or non-abbreviated ("Wednesday")
English language form (case does not matter), regardless of the
locale. However, if a weekday is specified and does not match the
date, the timestamp is rejected.
If the date is omitted, it defaults to today. If the time is
omitted, it defaults to 00:00:00. Fractional seconds can be
specified down to 1µs precision. The seconds field can also be
omitted, defaulting to 0.
There are special tokens that can be used in place of timestamps:
"now" may be used to refer to the current time (or of the
invocation of the command that is currently executed). "today",
"yesterday", and "tomorrow" refer to 00:00:00 of the current day,
the day before, or the next day, respectively.
Relative times are also accepted: a time span (see above) prefixed
with "+" is evaluated to the current time plus the specified time
span. Correspondingly, a time span that is prefixed with "-" is
evaluated to the current time minus the specified time span.
Instead of prefixing the time span with "+" or "-", it may also be
suffixed with a space and the word "left" or "ago".
Finally, an integer prefixed with "@" is evaluated relative to the
UNIX epoch – 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.
Examples for valid timestamps and their normalized form (assuming
the current time was 2012-11-23 18:15:22 and the timezone was
UTC+8, for example "TZ=:Asia/Shanghai"):
Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
2012-11-23 11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
2012-11-23 11:12:13 UTC → Fri 2012-11-23 19:12:13
2012-11-23T11:12:13Z → Fri 2012-11-23 19:12:13
2012-11-23T11:12+02:00 → Fri 2012-11-23 17:12:00
2012-11-23 → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
12-11-23 → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
11:12:13 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:13
11:12 → Fri 2012-11-23 11:12:00
now → Fri 2012-11-23 18:15:22
today → Fri 2012-11-23 00:00:00
today UTC → Fri 2012-11-23 16:00:00
yesterday → Fri 2012-11-22 00:00:00
tomorrow → Fri 2012-11-24 00:00:00
tomorrow Pacific/Auckland → Thu 2012-11-23 19:00:00
+3h30min → Fri 2012-11-23 21:45:22
-5s → Fri 2012-11-23 18:15:17
11min ago → Fri 2012-11-23 18:04:22
@1395716396 → Tue 2014-03-25 03:59:56
Note that timestamps displayed by remote systems with a
non-matching timezone are usually not parsable locally, as the
timezone component is not understood (unless it happens to be
"UTC").
Timestamps may also be specified with microsecond granularity. The
sub-second remainder is expected separated by a full stop from the
seconds component. Example:
2014-03-25 03:59:56.654563
In some cases, systemd will display a relative timestamp (relative
to the current time, or the time of invocation of the command)
instead of or in addition to an absolute timestamp as described
above. A relative timestamp is formatted as follows:
2 months 5 days ago
Note that a relative timestamp is also accepted where a timestamp
is expected (see above).
Use the timestamp command of systemd-analyze(1) to validate and
normalize timestamps for testing purposes.
Calendar events may be used to refer to one or more points in time
in a single expression. They form a superset of the absolute
timestamps explained above:
Thu,Fri 2012-*-1,5 11:12:13
The above refers to 11:12:13 of the first or fifth day of any
month of the year 2012, but only if that day is a Thursday or
Friday.
The weekday specification is optional. If specified, it should
consist of one or more English language weekday names, either in
the abbreviated (Wed) or non-abbreviated (Wednesday) form (case
does not matter), separated by commas. Specifying two weekdays
separated by ".." refers to a range of continuous weekdays. ","
and ".." may be combined freely.
In the date and time specifications, any component may be
specified as "*" in which case any value will match.
Alternatively, each component can be specified as a list of values
separated by commas. Values may be suffixed with "/" and a
repetition value, which indicates that the value itself and the
value plus all multiples of the repetition value are matched. Two
values separated by ".." may be used to indicate a range of
values; ranges may also be followed with "/" and a repetition
value, in which case the expression matches all times starting
with the start value, and continuing with all multiples of the
repetition value relative to the start value, ending at the end
value the latest.
A date specification may use "~" to indicate the last day in a
month. For example, "*-02~03" means "the third last day in
February," and "Mon *-05~07/1" means "the last Monday in May."
The seconds component may contain decimal fractions both in the
value and the repetition. All fractions are rounded to 6 decimal
places.
Either time or date specification may be omitted, in which case
00:00:00 and *-*-* is implied, respectively. If the seconds
component is not specified, ":00" is assumed.
Timezone can be specified as the literal string "UTC", or the
local timezone, similar to the supported syntax of timestamps (see
above), or the timezone in the IANA timezone database format (also
see above).
The following special expressions may be used as shorthands for
longer normalized forms:
minutely → *-*-* *:*:00
hourly → *-*-* *:00:00
daily → *-*-* 00:00:00
monthly → *-*-01 00:00:00
weekly → Mon *-*-* 00:00:00
yearly → *-01-01 00:00:00
quarterly → *-01,04,07,10-01 00:00:00
semiannually → *-01,07-01 00:00:00
Examples for valid timestamps and their normalized form:
Sat,Thu,Mon..Wed,Sat..Sun → Mon..Thu,Sat,Sun *-*-* 00:00:00
Mon,Sun 12-*-* 2,1:23 → Mon,Sun 2012-*-* 01,02:23:00
Wed *-1 → Wed *-*-01 00:00:00
Wed..Wed,Wed *-1 → Wed *-*-01 00:00:00
Wed, 17:48 → Wed *-*-* 17:48:00
Wed..Sat,Tue 12-10-15 1:2:3 → Tue..Sat 2012-10-15 01:02:03
*-*-7 0:0:0 → *-*-07 00:00:00
10-15 → *-10-15 00:00:00
monday *-12-* 17:00 → Mon *-12-* 17:00:00
Mon,Fri *-*-3,1,2 *:30:45 → Mon,Fri *-*-01,02,03 *:30:45
12,14,13,12:20,10,30 → *-*-* 12,13,14:10,20,30:00
12..14:10,20,30 → *-*-* 12..14:10,20,30:00
mon,fri *-1/2-1,3 *:30:45 → Mon,Fri *-01/2-01,03 *:30:45
03-05 08:05:40 → *-03-05 08:05:40
08:05:40 → *-*-* 08:05:40
05:40 → *-*-* 05:40:00
Sat,Sun 12-05 08:05:40 → Sat,Sun *-12-05 08:05:40
Sat,Sun 08:05:40 → Sat,Sun *-*-* 08:05:40
2003-03-05 05:40 → 2003-03-05 05:40:00
05:40:23.4200004/3.1700005 → *-*-* 05:40:23.420000/3.170001
2003-02..04-05 → 2003-02..04-05 00:00:00
2003-03-05 05:40 UTC → 2003-03-05 05:40:00 UTC
2003-03-05 → 2003-03-05 00:00:00
03-05 → *-03-05 00:00:00
hourly → *-*-* *:00:00
daily → *-*-* 00:00:00
daily UTC → *-*-* 00:00:00 UTC
monthly → *-*-01 00:00:00
weekly → Mon *-*-* 00:00:00
weekly Pacific/Auckland → Mon *-*-* 00:00:00 Pacific/Auckland
yearly → *-01-01 00:00:00
annually → *-01-01 00:00:00
*:2/3 → *-*-* *:02/3:00
Calendar events are used by timer units, see systemd.timer(5) for
details.
Use the calendar command of systemd-analyze(1) to validate and
normalize calendar time specifications for testing purposes. The
tool also calculates when a specified calendar event would occur
next.
systemd(1), journalctl(1), systemd.timer(5), systemd.unit(5),
systemd.directives(7), systemd-analyze(1)
1. RFC 3339
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
manager) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-11.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
systemd 258~rc2 SYSTEMD.TIME(7)
Pages that refer to this page: bootctl(1), homectl(1), journalctl(1), systemctl(1), systemd-analyze(1), systemd-creds(1), systemd-mount(1), timedatectl(1), crypttab(5), journal-upload.conf(5), logind.conf(5), systemd.exec(5), systemd.netdev(5), systemd.path(5), systemd.resource-control(5), systemd.socket(5), systemd.timer(5), systemd.unit(5), timesyncd.conf(5), systemd.index(7), systemd.syntax(7), udevadm(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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