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Manual: localectl

LOCALECTL(1) localectl LOCALECTL(1)

NAME
localectl - Control the system locale and keyboard layout settings

SYNOPSIS

localectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}

DESCRIPTION
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
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
The following options are understood:

-l, --full
Do not ellipsize the output.

Added in version 257.

--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.

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

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

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

Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER and $PAGER can only be used to disable the pager (with
"cat" or ""), and are otherwise 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
Common pager commands like less(1), in addition to "paging", i.e. scrolling through the output, support opening
of or writing to other files and running arbitrary shell commands. When commands are invoked with elevated
privileges, for example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), the pager becomes a security boundary. Care must be taken
that only programs with strictly limited functionality are used as pagers, and unintended interactive features
like opening or creation of new files or starting of subprocesses are not allowed. "Secure mode" for the pager
may be enabled as described below, if the pager supports that (most pagers are not written in a way that takes
this into consideration). It is recommended to either explicitly enable "secure mode" or to completely disable
the pager using --no-pager or PAGER=cat when allowing untrusted users to execute commands with elevated
privileges.

This option takes a boolean argument. When set to true, the "secure mode" of the pager is enabled. In "secure
mode", LESSSECURE=1 will be set when invoking the pager, which instructs the pager to disable commands that open
or create new files or start new subprocesses. Currently only less(1) is known to understand this variable and
implement "secure mode".

When set to false, no limitation is placed on the pager. Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from
the inherited environment may allow the user to invoke arbitrary commands.

When $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, systemd tools attempt to automatically figure out if "secure mode" should
be enabled and whether the pager supports it. "Secure mode" is enabled if the effective UID is not the same as
the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3), or when running under sudo(8) or
similar tools ($SUDO_UID is set [1]). In those cases, SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=1 will be set and pagers which are not
known to implement "secure mode" will not be used at all. Note that this autodetection only covers the most
common mechanisms to elevate privileges and is intended as convenience. It is recommended to explicitly set
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE or disable the pager.

Note that if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured, other than to disable the pager,
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too.

$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
systemd(1), locale(7), locale.conf(5), vconsole.conf(5), loadkeys(1), kbd(4), The XKB Configuration Guide[2],
systemctl(1), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)

NOTES
1. It is recommended for other tools to set and check $SUDO_UID as appropriate, treating it is a common interface.

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

systemd 259.5 LOCALECTL(1)

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Manual: localectl

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