localectl(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON

LOCALECTL(1)                    localectl                   LOCALECTL(1)

NAME         top

       localectl - Control the system locale and keyboard layout
       settings

SYNOPSIS         top


       localectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}

DESCRIPTION         top

       localectl may be used to query and change the system locale and
       keyboard layout settings. It communicates with systemd-localed(8)
       to modify files such as /etc/locale.conf and /etc/vconsole.conf.

       The system locale controls the language settings of system
       services and of the UI before the user logs in, such as the
       display manager, as well as the default for users after login.

       The keyboard settings control the keyboard layout used on the
       text console and of the graphical UI before the user logs in,
       such as the display manager, as well as the default for users
       after login.

       Note that the changes performed using this tool might require the
       initrd to be rebuilt to take effect during early system boot. The
       initrd is not rebuilt automatically by localectl, this task has
       to be performed manually, usually by reinstalling the
       distribution's kernel package.

       Note that systemd-firstboot(1) may be used to initialize the
       system locale for mounted (but not booted) system images.

COMMANDS         top

       The following commands are understood:

       status
           Show current settings of the system locale and keyboard
           mapping. If no command is specified, this is the implied
           default.

           Added in version 195.

       set-locale LOCALE, set-locale VARIABLE=LOCALE...
           Set the system locale. This takes one locale such as
           "en_US.UTF-8", or takes one or more locale assignments such
           as "LANG=de_DE.utf8", "LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.utf8", and so on. If
           one locale without variable name is provided, then "LANG="
           locale variable will be set. See locale(7) for details on the
           available settings and their meanings. Use list-locales for a
           list of available locales (see below).

           Added in version 195.

       list-locales
           List available locales useful for configuration with
           set-locale.

           Added in version 195.

       set-keymap MAP [TOGGLEMAP]
           Set the system keyboard mapping for the console and X11. This
           takes a mapping name (such as "de" or "us"), and possibly a
           second one to define a toggle keyboard mapping. Unless
           --no-convert is passed, the selected setting is also applied
           as the default system keyboard mapping of X11, after
           converting it to the closest matching X11 keyboard mapping.
           Use list-keymaps for a list of available keyboard mappings
           (see below).

           Added in version 195.

       list-keymaps
           List available keyboard mappings for the console, useful for
           configuration with set-keymap.

           Added in version 195.

       set-x11-keymap LAYOUT [MODEL [VARIANT [OPTIONS]]]
           Set the system default keyboard mapping for X11 and the
           virtual console. This takes a keyboard mapping name (such as
           "de" or "us"), and possibly a model, variant, and options,
           see kbd(4) for details. Unless --no-convert is passed, the
           selected setting is also applied as the system console
           keyboard mapping, after converting it to the closest matching
           console keyboard mapping.

           Added in version 195.

       list-x11-keymap-models, list-x11-keymap-layouts,
       list-x11-keymap-variants [LAYOUT], list-x11-keymap-options
           List available X11 keymap models, layouts, variants and
           options, useful for configuration with set-keymap. The
           command list-x11-keymap-variants optionally takes a layout
           parameter to limit the output to the variants suitable for
           the specific layout.

           Added in version 201.

OPTIONS         top

       The following options are understood:

       --no-ask-password
           Do not query the user for authentication for privileged
           operations.

           Added in version 195.

       --no-convert
           If set-keymap or set-x11-keymap is invoked and this option is
           passed, then the keymap will not be converted from the
           console to X11, or X11 to console, respectively.

           Added in version 195.

       -H, --host=
           Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a
           username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The
           hostname may optionally be suffixed by a port ssh is
           listening on, separated by ":", and then a container name,
           separated by "/", which connects directly to a specific
           container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to
           the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be
           enumerated with machinectl -H HOST. Put IPv6 addresses in
           brackets.

       -M, --machine=
           Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container
           name to connect to, optionally prefixed by a user name to
           connect as and a separating "@" character. If the special
           string ".host" is used in place of the container name, a
           connection to the local system is made (which is useful to
           connect to a specific user's user bus: "--user
           --machine=lennart@.host"). If the "@" syntax is not used, the
           connection is made as root user. If the "@" syntax is used
           either the left hand side or the right hand side may be
           omitted (but not both) in which case the local user name and
           ".host" are implied.

       -h, --help
           Print a short help text and exit.

       --version
           Print a short version string and exit.

       --no-pager
           Do not pipe output into a pager.

EXIT STATUS         top

       On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
           The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a
           higher log level, i.e. less important ones, will be
           suppressed). Takes a comma-separated list of values. A value
           may be either one of (in order of decreasing importance)
           emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, debug, or an
           integer in the range 0...7. See syslog(3) for more
           information. Each value may optionally be prefixed with one
           of console, syslog, kmsg or journal followed by a colon to
           set the maximum log level for that specific log target (e.g.
           SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug,console:info specifies to log at
           debug level except when logging to the console which should
           be at info level). Note that the global maximum log level
           takes priority over any per target maximum log levels.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
           A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be
           colored according to priority.

           This setting is only useful when messages are written
           directly to the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other
           tools that display logs will color messages based on the log
           level on their own.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
           A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed
           with a timestamp.

           This setting is only useful when messages are written
           directly to the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and
           other tools that display logs will attach timestamps based on
           the entry metadata on their own.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
           A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename
           and line number in the source code where the message
           originates.

           Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to
           journal entries anyway. Including it directly in the message
           text can nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_TID
           A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with the
           current numerical thread ID (TID).

           Note that the this information is attached as metadata to
           journal entries anyway. Including it directly in the message
           text can nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
           The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
           attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but
           with prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see
           syslog(3), kmsg (log to the kernel circular log buffer),
           journal (log to the journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the
           journal if available, and to kmsg otherwise), auto (determine
           the appropriate log target automatically, the default), null
           (disable log output).

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_RATELIMIT_KMSG
           Whether to ratelimit kmsg or not. Takes a boolean. Defaults
           to "true". If disabled, systemd will not ratelimit messages
           written to kmsg.

       $SYSTEMD_PAGER
           Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER.
           If neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of
           well-known pager implementations are tried in turn, including
           less(1) and more(1), until one is found. If no pager
           implementation is discovered no pager is invoked. Setting
           this environment variable to an empty string or the value
           "cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.

           Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER (as
           well as $PAGER) will be silently ignored.

       $SYSTEMD_LESS
           Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").

           Users might want to change two options in particular:

           K
               This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when
               Ctrl+C is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself
               to switch back to the pager command prompt, unset this
               option.

               If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and
               the pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored
               by the executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.

           X
               This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
               initialization and deinitialization strings to the
               terminal. It is set by default to allow command output to
               remain visible in the terminal even after the pager
               exits. Nevertheless, this prevents some pager
               functionality from working, in particular paged output
               cannot be scrolled with the mouse.

           Note that setting the regular $LESS environment variable has
           no effect for less invocations by systemd tools.

           See less(1) for more discussion.

       $SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
           Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if
           the invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).

           Note that setting the regular $LESSCHARSET environment
           variable has no effect for less invocations by systemd tools.

       $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
           Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the
           pager is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
           is not set at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective
           UID is not the same as the owner of the login session, see
           geteuid(2) and sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode,
           LESSSECURE=1 will be set when invoking the pager, and the
           pager shall disable commands that open or create new files or
           start new subprocesses. When $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
           at all, pagers which are not known to implement secure mode
           will not be used. (Currently only less(1) implements secure
           mode.)

           Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
           example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to
           ensure that unintended interactive features are not enabled.
           "Secure" mode for the pager may be enabled automatically as
           describe above. Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing
           it from the inherited environment allows the user to invoke
           arbitrary commands. Note that if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER
           variables are to be honoured, $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be
           set too. It might be reasonable to completely disable the
           pager using --no-pager instead.

       $SYSTEMD_COLORS
           Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related
           utilities will use colors in their output, otherwise the
           output will be monochrome. Additionally, the variable can
           take one of the following special values: "16", "256" to
           restrict the use of colors to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors,
           respectively. This can be specified to override the automatic
           decision based on $TERM and what the console is connected to.

       $SYSTEMD_URLIFY
           The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
           should be generated in the output for terminal emulators
           supporting this. This can be specified to override the
           decision that systemd makes based on $TERM and other
           conditions.

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd(1), locale(7), locale.conf(5), vconsole.conf(5),
       loadkeys(1), kbd(4), The XKB Configuration Guide[1],
       systemctl(1), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)

NOTES         top

        1. The XKB Configuration Guide
           http://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/xorg-docs/input/XKB-Config.html

COLOPHON         top

       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 2024-06-14.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2024-06-13.)  If you discover any rendering
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       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
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       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

systemd 257~devel                                           LOCALECTL(1)

Pages that refer to this page: systemd-firstboot(1)locale.conf(5)vconsole.conf(5)systemd.directives(7)systemd.index(7)systemd-localed.service(8)systemd-machined.service(8)