04.12.2009 10:57:43

Problem with locales on remote server via ssh

I recently had the problem, that I got the following error when I connection to a new debian-server via ssh and then called locale:

locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=de_DE@euro
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

The same problem manifested in perl:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
        LANGUAGE = (unset),
        LC_ALL = (unset),
        LC_PAPER = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_CTYPE = "de_DE@euro",
        LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

First I thought it was a problem on the remote server. Googeling around I found a lot of users with the same problem, but not really a solution how to fix it correctly and what the problem is in the first place.

In the end some hints brought me to the solution: Debian in its default configuration allows ssh to set some environment-variables on the remote server. This is configured in /etc/ssh/ssh_config with the line SendEnv LANG LC_*. I think debian went this route to allow umlauts and other special chars to be possible in a ssh-session. Now, if the locale-setting on your local machine is not installed on the remote-system you get the aforementioned error-messages when you ssh to the remote server.

So, to get rid of this problem (which normally is only cosmetic) you have two possiblities:

• Don't send the environment locales from your locale machine to the remote machine. I took this way by just commenting out the line SendEnv LANG LC_* in /etc/ssh/ssh_config as I don't see any reason to set it on the remote system.
• Or install the locale which you use on your local system on the remote system.

I hope this helps some people coping with this problem and searching for an answer.