Linode Lish bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8)

Question

Following Linode's guide to Copy a Disk Over SSH:

ssh root@xx.xx.xxx.xx "dd if=/dev/sdX " | dd of=/PathToLocalLocation/server.img

Where xx.xx.xxx.xx is your server's IP, sdX - X stands for your drive's assigned letter, and also you must state the image's name = server.img

I ran into this issue (on my local computer):

bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8)

I conducted a long search with many results which none of worked for Lish nor were they a complete solution.

I couldn't set locales on the Lish command line no matter what I did.... All the answers out there are regarding command-line on local or servers, not rescue-mode.... Ideas?

Answer 1

Trial & error with different answers, I came up with this solution (on Lish while server is in rescue-mode):

echo "LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8" >> /etc/environment
echo "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" >> /etc/locale.gen
echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
locale-gen en_US.UTF-8

Last command resulted in the following error:

locale-gen: command not found

Here's what you need to do (still on Lish):

apt-get clean && apt-get update
apt-get install locales
locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
Generating locales (this might take a while)...
  en_US.UTF-8... done
Generation complete

You're good to go...copy your server's disk over to your local machine.

Answer 2

for anyone coming across this post on Debian11 - but should also work on earlier versions - and on similar flavours like Ubuntu. The error indicates that your locales are not generated.

To resolve:

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

Select the desired locales - or all of them. Next you will be asked if you wish to set a default system locale. Select the desired option - for example en_US.UTF-8 and use TAB to go to OK and press enter.

All done.

Answer 3

To fix the warning follow the following steps:

Open the environment file in the etc folder with your preferred editor.

vi /etc/environment

Press i key to enter edit mode, add the following lines to the file.

LANG=en_US.utf-8
LC_ALL=en_US.utf-8

Pressing Esc key and type :wq to "write/save" the file and exit the editor. Run source /etc/environment

The warning is now fixed and should be gone from the terminal.

Answer 4

I'm not 100% sure but you could simply be missing the en_US.UTF-8 locale on your local computer, you can try generating it with sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 (on your local computer).

Answer 5

You probably do not have a package installed. This package may be missing in some Docker containers. At least, this was an issue that I encountered.

glibc-langpack-en