localectl — Control the system locale and keyboard layout settings
localectl
[OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}
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 initramfs to be rebuilt to take effect during early system boot.
The initramfs is not rebuilt automatically by localectl
.
Note that systemd-firstboot(1) may be used to initialize the system locale for mounted (but not booted) system images.
The following commands are understood:
Show current settings of the system locale and keyboard mapping. If no command is specified, this is the implied default.
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).
List available locales useful for configuration with set-locale.
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).
List available keyboard mappings for the console, useful for configuration with set-keymap.
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.
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.
The following options are understood:
--no-ask-password
¶Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
--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.
-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.
-h
, --help
¶--version
¶--no-pager
¶Do not pipe output into a pager.
$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
.
$SYSTEMD_LESS
¶Override the options passed to less (by default
"FRSXMK
").
Users might want to change two options in particular:
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).
$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
¶The value must be a boolean. Controls whether colorized output should be
generated. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd makes 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.