ubuntu config the time and time zone

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

#for restart below can take effect
sudo cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Chongqing /etc/localtime

#install ntpdate to sync the time
sudo apt-get install ntpdate
sudo ntpdate cn.pool.ntp.org

For addition , may be you want to get the unix timestamp :

date +%s

Or , maybe you want to get the unix timestamp based the date string:

date --date '20130808 16:32:45' +%s
#it will echo the unix timestamp base the date