How to set up system locale on CentOS 7

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 36px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 20px 0px 10px;"> <u><span style="color: #990000;">Set up system locale on CentOS</span></u></h1> <div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">System locale allows you to specify the language settings for the user interfaces and services running on your system.The system-wide locale settings are stored in a file. The file is <b>/etc/locale.conf</b> and this file is read by the systemd daemon at system boot. All the settings specified in this file are inherited by the users on your system and the services running on your system</span></span></div> </div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9XbsnWN04uo6bVe7Da28ob3_ZCnNwKOkmJyTMLMvkCCiVswB1I1m9-IeZwXdDxMvsNmRsInzE2_aesW_sb0qlMPXBpqsaovdg_cN-rTZSQ5VSIb8GN7ujJzeLJMAciIeBXelkJ-B69E/s1600/centos_logo_hackthesec.co.in.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9XbsnWN04uo6bVe7Da28ob3_ZCnNwKOkmJyTMLMvkCCiVswB1I1m9-IeZwXdDxMvsNmRsInzE2_aesW_sb0qlMPXBpqsaovdg_cN-rTZSQ5VSIb8GN7ujJzeLJMAciIeBXelkJ-B69E/s1600/centos_logo_hackthesec.co.in.png" /></a></div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">Run the following command to check the system locale specified on your server</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl status</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">You should see something like the following:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl status System Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8 VC Keymap: n/a X11 Layout: n/a</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">You can check the system locale specified on your CentOS by reading the /etc/locale.conf file too:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># cat /etc/locale.conf LANG=en_US.utf8</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">If you want to set up different system locale on your system you can do that by using the localectl command. First, list the available locales:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl list-locales</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">The list should be very long. If you want to filter the English locales you can do that using the command below:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl list-locales | grep en_</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">You should get something like the following:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-color: whitesmoke; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.42857; margin-bottom: 10px; overflow: auto; padding: 9.5px; word-break: break-all; word-wrap: break-word;"># 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 en_CA en_CA.iso88591 en_CA.utf8 en_DK en_DK.iso88591 en_DK.utf8 en_GB en_GB.iso88591 en_GB.iso885915 en_GB.utf8 en_HK ...</pre> </div> <div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> To set up a specific system locale to be a default one, you can use the localectl command:</div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> <br /></div> <div style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"> The syntax is the following:</div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl set-locale LANG=locale_name</span></span></pre> </div> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">You need to replace locale_name with the default locale you like to set. For example, if you’d like to set en_GB.utf8 as a default system locale you can use the command below:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl set-locale LANG=en_GB.utf8</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">To check if everything is OK you can run the following command again:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl status</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">OUTPUT:-</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-color: whitesmoke; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.42857; margin-bottom: 10px; overflow: auto; padding: 9.5px; word-break: break-all; word-wrap: break-word;"># localectl status System Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8 VC Keymap: n/a X11 Layout: n/a</pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">Using localectl you can set up virtual console keyboard mappings on your system too. For more information about what options are available you can use the –help flag:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"># localectl --help</span></span></pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;">The output of the command above should be similar to the following one:</span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-color: whitesmoke; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Menlo, Monaco, Consolas, 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.42857; margin-bottom: 10px; overflow: auto; padding: 9.5px; word-break: break-all; word-wrap: break-word;"># localectl --help localectl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND ... Query or change system locale and keyboard settings. -h --help Show this help --version Show package version --no-pager Do not pipe output into a pager --no-ask-password Do not prompt for password -H --host=[USER@]HOST Operate on remote host -M --machine=CONTAINER Operate on local container --no-convert Don't convert keyboard mappings Commands: status Show current locale settings set-locale LOCALE... Set system locale list-locales Show known locales set-keymap MAP [MAP] Set console and X11 keyboard mappings list-keymaps Show known virtual console keyboard mappings set-x11-keymap LAYOUT [MODEL [VARIANT [OPTIONS]]] Set X11 and console keyboard mappings list-x11-keymap-models Show known X11 keyboard mapping models list-x11-keymap-layouts Show known X11 keyboard mapping layouts list-x11-keymap-variants [LAYOUT] Show known X11 keyboard mapping variants list-x11-keymap-options Show known X11 keyboard mapping options</pre> </div> <div> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 26px;"><br /></span></span></div> <div> <pre style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: #3c3c3c; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; overflow: auto; padding: 20px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 15.6px;"><a href="http://www.hackthesec.co.in/">www.hackthesec.co.in</a></span></span></pre> </div> </div>

How to set up system locale on CentOS 7

Set up system locale on CentOS System locale allows you to specify the language settings for the user interfaces and services running o...

Read more »