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
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.
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.
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).
list-locales
List available locales useful for configuration with set-locale.
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).
list-keymaps
List available keyboard mappings for the console, useful for
configuration with set-keymap.
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.
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.
OPTIONS
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
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_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:
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.
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_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.
SEE ALSO
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), mkinitrd(8)
NOTES
1. The XKB Configuration Guide
http://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/xorg-docs/input/XKB-Config.html
systemd 245 LOCALECTL(1)