locale.conf - Man Page

/etc/locale​.conf

The /etc/locale​.conf file configures system-wide locale settings​. It is read at early boot by systemd(1)​.

The format of locale​.conf is a newline-separated list of environment-like shell-compatible variable assignments, ignoring comments and empty lines​. It is possible to source the configuration from shell scripts, however, beyond mere variable assignments, no shell features are supported, allowing applications to read the file without implementing a shell compatible execution engine​. See os-release(5) for a detailed description of the format​.

Note that the kernel command line options locale​.LANG=, locale​.LANGUAGE=, locale​.LC_CTYPE=, locale​.LC_NUMERIC=, locale​.LC_TIME=, locale​.LC_COLLATE=, locale​.LC_MONETARY=, locale​.LC_MESSAGES=, locale​.LC_PAPER=, locale​.LC_NAME=, locale​.LC_ADDRESS=, locale​.LC_TELEPHONE=, locale​.LC_MEASUREMENT=, locale​.LC_IDENTIFICATION= may be used to override the locale settings at boot​.

The locale settings configured in /etc/locale​.conf are system-wide and are inherited by every service or user, unless overridden or unset by individual programs or users​.

Depending on the operating system, other configuration files might be checked for locale configuration as well, however only as fallback​.

/etc/locale​.conf can be updated using systemd-localed.service(8)​. localectl(1) may be used to alter the settings in this file during runtime from the command line​. Use systemd-firstboot(1) to customize them on mounted (but not booted) system images​.

The following locale settings may be set using /etc/locale​.conf: LANG=, LANGUAGE=, LC_CTYPE=, LC_NUMERIC=, LC_TIME=, LC_COLLATE=, LC_MONETARY=, LC_MESSAGES=, LC_PAPER=, LC_NAME=, LC_ADDRESS=, LC_TELEPHONE=, LC_MEASUREMENT=, LC_IDENTIFICATION=​. Note that LC_ALL may not be configured in this file​. For details about the meaning and semantics of these settings, refer to locale(7)​.

Example ​1. ​German locale with English messages

/etc/locale​.conf:

# Custom settings

LANG=de_DE​.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_US​.UTF-8

systemd(1), locale(7), localectl(1), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)

localectl(1), systemd(1), systemd.directives(7), systemd.exec(5), systemd-firstboot(1), systemd.index(7), systemd-localed.service(8), vconsole.conf(5).