How to set the locale inside a Debian Ubuntu Docker container

Question

I m running a Ubuntu Docker container  I have a Norwegian keyboard and need to use Norwegian characters            My Terminal character encoding is set to UTF-8 and I m connected to my container using SSH  However  I m unable to type Norwegian characters  nor copy and paste Norwegian characters  nor use CTL SHIFT U 00f8   I tried   locale-gen nb NO UTF-8   but nothing changed  How do I set the locale and keyboard inside a Docker container

User · Answer

I actually happened to have suffered from the same problem, but none of the provided answers are 100% working with debian:latest, even if they provide good hints.

The biggest difference is that you should make sure both locales and locales-all are installed, the latter already containing en_US.UTF-8, so you don't have to generate it with local-gen or dpkg-reconfigure.

Here's what I've done in my Dockerfile to make it work:

FROM debian:latest
RUN apt-get update
RUN apt-get install -y locales locales-all
ENV LC_ALL en_US.UTF-8
ENV LANG en_US.UTF-8
ENV LANGUAGE en_US.UTF-8

User · Answer

Tip  Browse the container documentation forums  like the Docker Forum   Here s a solution for debian  amp  ubuntu  add the following to your Dockerfile   RUN apt-get update  amp  amp  apt-get install -y locales  amp  amp  rm -rf  var lib apt lists          amp  amp  localedef -i en US -c -f UTF-8 -A  usr share locale locale alias en US UTF-8 ENV LANG en US UTF-8

User · Answer

You guys don t need those complex things to set locales on Ubuntu Debian  You don t even need  etc local gen file   Simply locale-gen will do everything and the author only missed locales package   RUN apt-get update  amp  amp  apt-get install -y locales  amp  amp  rm -rf  var lib apt lists       amp  amp  locale-gen  en US UTF-8  ENV LANG en US UTF-8       LANGUAGE en US en       LC ALL en US UTF-8   I found this the simplest and the most effective  I confirm it works on Ubuntu 16 04

User · Answer

Specify the LANG and LC ALL environment variables using -e when running your command   docker run -e LANG C UTF-8 -e LC ALL C UTF-8 -it --rm  lt yourimage gt   lt yourcommand gt    It s not necessary to modify the Dockerfile

User · Answer

Those who use Debian also have to install locales package   RUN apt-get update  amp  amp  DEBIAN FRONTEND noninteractive apt-get install -y locales  RUN sed -i -e  s   en US UTF-8 UTF-8 en US UTF-8 UTF-8    etc locale gen  amp  amp        dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive locales  amp  amp        update-locale LANG en US UTF-8  ENV LANG en US UTF-8    This answer helped me a lot

User · Answer

Rather than resetting the locale after the installation of the locales package you can answer the questions you would normally get asked  which is disabled by noninteractive  before installing the package so that the package scripts setup the locale correctly  this example sets the locale to english  British  UTF-8    RUN echo locales locales default environment locale select en GB UTF-8   debconf-set-selections RUN echo locales locales locales to be generated select  en GB UTF-8 UTF-8    debconf-set-selections  RUN     apt-get update  amp  amp      DEBIAN FRONTEND noninteractive apt-get install -y locales  amp  amp      rm -rf  var lib apt lists

User · Answer

I used this  after RUN apt-get install -y python3    RUN apt-get install -y locales RUN apt-get install -y language-pack-en ENV LANG en US UTF-8  ENV LANGUAGE en US en  ENV LC ALL en US UTF-8 RUN python3 -c  print  UTF8 works nice        And it prints UTF8 works nice   correctly

User · Answer

I dislike having Docker environment variables when I do not expect user of a Docker image to change them    Just put it somewhere in one RUN  If you do not have UTF-8 locales generated  then you can do the following set of commands   export DEBIAN FRONTEND noninteractive apt-get update -q -q apt-get install --yes locales locale-gen --no-purge en US UTF-8 update-locale LANG en US UTF-8 echo locales locales locales to be generated multiselect en US UTF-8 UTF-8   debconf-set-selections echo locales locales default environment locale select en US UTF-8   debconf-set-selections dpkg-reconfigure locales

User · Answer

Mixel s answer worked great for the Ubuntu-based docker image we have   However  we also have a centos-based docker image for testing recipes via chef  using the kitchen-docker driver   One of the packages we pre-install was failing to install due to no locale being set  In order to get a locale installed  I had to run the following   localedef -c -f UTF-8 -i en US en US UTF-8 export LC ALL en US UTF-8   I got this information from this answer on ServerFault   After running the above commands as part of the docker provisioning the package installed without any errors  From  kitchen yml   platforms    - name  centos7     driver config        image    private image        platform  centos       provision command        - localedef -c -f UTF-8 -i en US en US UTF-8       - export LC ALL en US UTF-8

User · Answer

Just add   ENV LANG C UTF-8 ENV LC ALL C UTF-8   into your Dockerfile   You may need to make sure the locales package is installed   Nothing else is needed for the basic operation  Meanwhile  outside of Ubuntu  locale-gen doesn   t accept any arguments  that   s why none of the    fixes    using it work e g  on Debian  Ubuntu have patched locale-gen to accept a list of locales to generate but the patch at the moment has not been accepted in Debian of anywhere else

User · Answer

For me what worked in ubuntu image   FROM ubuntu xenial USER root ENV DEBIAN FRONTEND noninteractive RUN apt-get update  amp  amp  apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y locales  amp  amp  rm -rf  var lib apt lists   RUN echo  LC ALL en US UTF-8   gt  gt   etc environment RUN echo  en US UTF-8 UTF-8   gt  gt   etc locale gen RUN echo  LANG en US UTF-8   gt   etc locale conf

User · Answer

Put in your Dockerfile something adapted from   Set the locale RUN sed -i   en US UTF-8 s      g   etc locale gen  amp  amp        locale-gen ENV LANG en US UTF-8   ENV LANGUAGE en US en   ENV LC ALL en US UTF-8       If you run Debian or Ubuntu  you also need to install locales to have locale-gen with apt-get -y install locales  this is extracted from the very good post on that subject  from http   jaredmarkell com docker-and-locales

[docker] How to set the locale inside a Debian/Ubuntu Docker container?

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