Ubuntu Manpage: localectl - Control the system locale and keyboard layout settings

Provided by: systemd_249.11-0ubuntu3.12_amd64

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,
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

       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). 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.

$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_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_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.

NOTES

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