System Locale Configuration-RHEL 7
The system locale specifies the language settings of system services and user interfaces. The keyboard layout settings control the layout used on the text console and graphical user interfaces.
These settings can be made by modifying the /etc/locale.conf configuration file or by using the localectl utility.
These settings can be made by modifying the /etc/locale.conf configuration file or by using the localectl utility.
1.1. SETTING THE SYSTEM LOCALE
System-wide locale settings are stored in the /etc/locale.conf file, which is read at early boot by the systemd daemon. The locale settings configured in /etc/locale.conf are inherited by every service or user, unless individual programs or individual users override them.
The basic file format of /etc/locale.conf is a newline-separated list of variable assignments.
The basic file format of /etc/locale.conf is a newline-separated list of variable assignments.
sudo cat /etc/locale.conf LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
German locale with English messages in /etc/locale.conf looks as follows:
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=C
Here, the LC_MESSAGES option determines the locale used for diagnostic messages written to the standard error output. To further specify locale settings in
/etc/locale.conf
Table 1.1. Options configurable in /etc/locale.conf
Option | Description |
---|---|
LANG | Provides a default value for the system locale. |
LC_COLLATE | Changes the behavior of functions which compare strings in the local alphabet. |
LC_CTYPE | Changes the behavior of the character handling and classification functions and the multibyte character functions. |
LC_NUMERIC | Describes the way numbers are usually printed, with details such as decimal point versus decimal comma. |
LC_TIME | Changes the display of the current time, 24-hour versus 12-hour clock. |
LC_MESSAGES | Determines the locale used for diagnostic messages written to the standard error output. |
1.1.1. Displaying the Current Status
The
localectl
command can be used to query and change the system locale and keyboard layout settings. To show the current settings, use the status
option:localectl
status
Example 1.1. Displaying the Current Status
The output of the previous command lists the currently set locale, keyboard layout configured for the console and for the X11 window system.
~]$localectl
status
System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 VC Keymap: us X11 Layout: n/a
1.1.2. Listing Available Locales
To list all locales available for your system, type:
localectl
list-locales
Example 1.2. Listing Locales
Imagine you want to select a specific English locale, but you are not sure if it is available on the system. You can check that by listing all English locales with the following command:
~]$localectl
list-locales
|grep
en_
en_AG en_AG.utf8 en_AU en_AU.iso88591 en_AU.utf8 en_BW en_BW.iso88591 en_BW.utf8 output truncated
1.1.3. Setting the Locale
To set the default system locale, use the following command as
root
:localectl
set-locale
LANG
=locale
Replace locale with the locale name, found with the
localectl
list-locales
command.
Example 1.3. Changing the Default Locale
For example, if you want to set British English as your default locale, first find the name of this locale by using
list-locales
. Then, as root
, type the command in the following form:~]#localectl
set-locale
LANG
=en_GB.utf8
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