How to check and set time on an ESXi 5.x host

To check the time and to make sure you server is synchronizing do the following:

1. Connect to the host using SSH
2. Run this command to check time and date:
   
   date
3. Run the following command to check time synchronization:
   
   watch ntpq localhost
4. Output should be something like this:
   
   remote refid st t when poll reach delay offset jitter
   ==============================================================================
   *10.11.12.130.0.0.0 1 - 46 64 377 43.76 -5.58 40000

To set the time through the command line run the following from the console:

# esxcli system time set -d 31 -M 1 -y 2012 -H 18 -m 0 -s 0