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Chapter 4. Changing basic environment settings

Configuration of basic environment settings is a part of the installation process. The following sections guide you when you change them later. The basic configuration of the environment includes:

  • Date and time
  • System locales
  • Keyboard layout
  • Language

4.1. Configuring the date and time
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Accurate timekeeping is important for several reasons. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, timekeeping is ensured by the NTP protocol, which is implemented by a daemon running in user space. The user-space daemon updates the system clock running in the kernel. The system clock can keep time by using various clock sources.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 uses the chronyd daemon to implement NTP. chronyd is available from the chrony package. For more information, see Using the chrony suite to configure NTP.

To display the current date and time, use either of these steps.

Procedure

  1. Optional: List the timezones: 

    # timedatectl list-timezones

  Europe/Berlin

  2. Set the time zone: 

    # timedatectl set-timezone <time_zone>

  3. Set the date and time: 

    # timedatectl set-time <YYYY-mm-dd HH:MM:SS>

Verification

  1. Display the date, time, and timezone: 

    # date
Mon Mar 30 16:02:59 CEST 2020

  2. To see more details, use the timedatectl command: 

    # timedatectl

Local time: Mon 2020-03-30 16:04:42 CEST
Universal time: Mon 2020-03-30 14:04:42 UTC
RTC time: Mon 2020-03-30 14:04:41
Time zone: Europe/Prague (CEST, +0200)
System clock synchronized: yes
NTP service: active
RTC in local TZ: no

You can set a time zone and synchronize the system time with a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server in the RHEL web console.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the RHEL 8 web console.
  • You have enabled the cockpit service.

  • Your user account is allowed to log in to the web console.

    For instructions, see Installing and enabling the web console.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the RHEL 8 web console.

    For details, see Logging in to the web console.

  2. Click the current system time in Overview.
  3. Click System time.
  4. In the Change System Time dialog box, change the time zone if necessary.

  5. In the Set Time drop-down menu, select one of the following:

    Manually
    Use this option if you need to set the time manually, without an NTP server.
    Automatically using NTP server
    This is a default option, which synchronizes time automatically with the preset NTP servers.
    Automatically using specific NTP servers
    Use this option only if you need to synchronize the system with a specific NTP server. Specify the DNS name or the IP address of the server.
  6. Click Change.

Verification

  • Check the system time displayed in the System tab.

4.3. Configuring the system locale
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System-wide locale settings are stored in the /etc/locale.conf file that is read at early boot by the systemd daemon. Every service or user inherits the locale settings configured in /etc/locale.conf, unless individual programs or individual users override them.

Procedure

  1. Optional: Display the current system locales settings: 

    # localectl status
System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8
	VC Keymap: de-nodeadkeys
   X11 Layout: de
  X11 Variant: nodeadkeys

  2. List available system locale settings: 

    $ localectl list-locales
C.UTF-8
...
en_US.UTF-8
en_ZA.UTF-8
en_ZW.UTF-8
...
  3. Update the syste locale setting:

For example:

+ 

# localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Note

The GNOME Terminal does not support non-UTF8 system locales. For more information, see the Red Hat Knowledgebase solution The gnome-terminal application fails to start when the system locale is set to non-UTF8.

4.4. Configuring the keyboard layout
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The keyboard layout settings control the layout used on the text console and graphical user interfaces.

Procedure

  1. To list available keymaps: 

    $ localectl list-keymaps
ANSI-dvorak
al
al-plisi
amiga-de
amiga-us
...

  2. To display the current status of keymaps settings: 

    $ localectl status
...
VC Keymap: us
...

  3. To set or change the default system keymap. For example: 

    # localectl set-keymap us

4.5. Changing the font size in text console mode
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You can change the font size in the virtual console.

Procedure

  1. Display the currently-used font file: 

    # cat /etc/vconsole.conf

FONT="eurlatgr"

  2. List the available font files: 

    # ls -1 /usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/*.psfu.gz

/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/eurlatgr.psfu.gz
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/LatArCyrHeb-08.psfu.gz
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/LatArCyrHeb-14.psfu.gz
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/LatArCyrHeb-16.psfu.gz
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/LatArCyrHeb-16+.psfu.gz
/usr/lib/kbd/consolefonts/LatArCyrHeb-19.psfu.gz

    Select a font file that supports your character set and code page.

  3. Optional: To test a font file, load it temporarily: 

    # setfont LatArCyrHeb-16.psfu.gz

    The setfont utility applies the font file immediately and terminals use the new and font size until you reboot or apply a different font file.

  4. To return to the font file defined in /etc/vconsole.conf, enter setfont without any parameters.

  5. Edit the /etc/vconsole.conf file and set the FONT variable to the font file RHEL should load at boot time, for example: 

    FONT=LatArCyrHeb-16

  6. Reboot the host 

    # reboot
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