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 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.
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:
-l, --full¶Do not ellipsize the output.
--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, 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¶--version¶--no-pager¶Do not pipe output into a pager.
$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.
systemd(1), locale(7), locale.conf(5), vconsole.conf(5), loadkeys(1), kbd(4), The XKB Configuration Guide , systemctl(1), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)
[1] It is recommended for other tools to set and check $SUDO_UID as appropriate,
treating it is a common interface.