localectl

systemd

localectl

Control the system locale and keyboard layout settings

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 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.

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:

-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.

Exit status

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.