Configuring "locales" in Debian and Ubuntu, using Ansible

Missing locale settings will result in error messages like:

ads@ansible-ubuntu-03:~$ perl --version
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
        LANGUAGE = "en_US:en",
        LC_ALL = (unset),
        LC_PAPER = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_ADDRESS = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_MONETARY = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_NUMERIC = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_TELEPHONE = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_IDENTIFICATION = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_MEASUREMENT = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_TIME = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LC_NAME = "de_DE.UTF-8",
        LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to a fallback locale ("en_US.UTF-8").

This can be configured, but unfortunately the locale package does not use the debconf database. This makes it more complicated to configure the locales settings using Ansible.

The solution is to update the file /etc/locale.gen as well, and uncomment any locale you want to have on your system. First, for sake of completeness, let’s update the debconf database:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
    - name: locales
      command: "{{ item }}"
      with_items:
        - echo locales locales/locales_to_be_generated multiselect     de_DE ISO-8859-1, de_DE ISO-8859-15, de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8, de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15, en_GB ISO-8859-1, en_GB ISO-8859-15, en_GB.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15, en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8, en_US ISO-8859-1, en_US ISO-8859-15, en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15, 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 -f noninteractive
        - touch /root/.locales-updated
      when: ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu'
      args:
        creates: /root/.locales-updated

    - name: locales
      command: "{{ item }}"
      with_items:
        - echo locales locales/locales_to_be_generated multiselect     de_DE ISO-8859-1, de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8, de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15, en_GB ISO-8859-1, en_GB.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15, en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8, en_US ISO-8859-1, en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15, 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 -f noninteractive
        - touch /root/.locales-updated
      when: ansible_distribution == 'Debian'
      args:
        creates: /root/.locales-updated

This task creates a new file /root/.locales-updated in order to mark this step as completed. Not sure how else this can accomplished here.

In a second step, update /etc/locale.gen and remove comments from all locale lines which are to build:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
    - name: locales (for real)
      lineinfile:
        dest: /etc/locale.gen
        regexp: "{{ item.regexp }}"
        line: "{{ item.line }}"
        state: "{{ item.state }}"
      with_items:
        - { regexp: '^#? ?de_DE ISO-8859-1', line: 'de_DE ISO-8859-1', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8', line: 'de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15', line: 'de_DE@euro ISO-8859-15', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_GB ISO-8859-1', line: 'en_GB ISO-8859-1', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_GB.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15', line: 'en_GB.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8', line: 'en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_US ISO-8859-1', line: 'en_US ISO-8859-1', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15', line: 'en_US.ISO-8859-15 ISO-8859-15', state: present }
        - { regexp: '^#? ?en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8', line: 'en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8', state: present }
      when: ansible_distribution == 'Ubuntu' or ansible_distribution == 'Debian'
      notify:
        - rebuild locales

Note that this task triggers rebuild locales, if something is changed in the file. Here is the trigger code:

1
2
3
  handlers:
    - name: rebuild locales
      command: /usr/sbin/locale-gen

Categories: [Ansible] [Linux]

Tags: [Ansible] [Automation] [Debian] [Locales] [Ubuntu]

Friends