locale.conf - Configuration file for locale settings
Contents
Description
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.
Example
Example1.GermanlocalewithEnglishmessages/etc/locale.conf:
# Custom settings
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
Name
locale.conf - Configuration file for locale settings
Options
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).
See Also
systemd(1), locale(7), localectl(1), systemd-localed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)
systemd 257.7 LOCALE.CONF(5)
Synopsis
/etc/locale.conf
