Epoch time is an absolute Unix time ⏰scale.
It’s the number of seconds since:
Thu, Jan 1, 00:00:00 (Midnight), UTC, 1970
The Big Bang 🌌 for Unix time if you will 🤭
Here’s how to get:
- A Regular Timestamp
date
- Epoch format
date +%s
- Convert Epoch time to “regular” UTC time:
date -u --date @1748991936
And now me nerding 🤓 out..
- Epoch time is a discrete number
- It’s analogous to the Kelvin temperature scale 🌡️
- Unlike Kelvin, you can reach zero 😉
date -u --date @0
One – of many – places Epoch timestamps show up is in your Linux audit log:
Learn Linux 