Default locale is set to en_US.UTF-8 but it's missing

[robinst]

We use the CentOS 7 image for testing, and have had an error related to locales that started happening only a few days ago. Steps to reproduce:

Using the following Dockerfile:

FROM centos:7
RUN yum -y install gcc libmemcached-devel

Build it:

$ docker build .

Run the build image:

$ docker run -ti ab7f114ea298
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_COLLATE: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_MESSAGES: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_NUMERIC: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_TIME: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8): No such file or directory
[root@476f2cc9c761 /]# locale  
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES 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="en_US.UTF-8"
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="en_US.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=
[root@476f2cc9c761 /]# locale -a
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_COLLATE to default locale: No such file or directory
C
POSIX
[root@476f2cc9c761 /]# cat /etc/locale.conf
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

We narrowed it down to the combination of the two packages gcc and libmemcached-devel. If just installing either one on its own, the problem doesn't occur. libmemcached-devel seems to pull in a package that creates /etc/profile.d/lang.sh which seems to be the thing setting the locale.

But somehow in that yum transaction, the locales seem to not be built properly, as you can see in the locale -a output above.

[robinst]

Here's the full output of docker build .: https://gist.github.com/robinst/65087930a385a0187b3f1cfa95150f35

Any ideas?

[robinst]

It looks like the following might be a workaround until this is fixed:

localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8

[remy-tiitre]

The same is happening for us and it related to gcc update. It will happen even when you create Dockerfile

[remy-tiitre]

FROM centos:7
...
RUN yum -y update
...

This will update gcc and screw up locale. Very annoing, as in general I avoid running yum update but unfortunately for Selenium I need to install chrome and it will do it anyway.

[andrewmichaelsmith]

Also seeing this issue just now:

$ docker run -ti centos bash
[root@f3d33016349f /]# locale -a
C
POSIX
en_US.utf8
[root@f3d33016349f /]# yum install -y glibc
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, ovl
base
....
....<snipped for brevity>....
....
Complete!
[root@f3d33016349f /]# locale -a               
C
POSIX

Around a month ago we were not hitting this issue.

[remy-tiitre]

I think we just need up to date centos docker image (CentOS-7 (1611)). Probably yum updates something it shouldn't.

[andrewmichaelsmith]

@remy-tiitre For us, we don't want to immediately take 1611 so ideally there would be a solution that doesn't involve taking that immediately.

As @robinst suggests, our current workaround is to just run localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8 after our yum install.

[remy-tiitre]

I'm not even sure that 1611 fixes it, but there should be a Docker image for that for sure. Hopefully it will be created soon. localedef is a solution for most cases but it gets annoing if you use https://chrome.richardlloyd.org.uk/ install_chrome.sh or any other script like that (you have to modify the script itself). I also noticed some other warnings that usually I would like to avoid in my docker containers :)
warning: /etc/nsswitch.conf created as /etc/nsswitch.conf.rpmnew
line 1: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions: No such file or directory
warning: %triggerin(systemd-219-30.el7_3.6.x86_64) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
install-info: No such file or directory for /usr/share/info/gettext.info.gz
etc

I believe they are all solvable, but I would rather prefer 1611 where yum update does not update those base components.

[jperrin]

So, I've spent a couple days sorting out the 7.3.1611 base container (which should be arriving shortly)

This glibc behavior is consistent, though I don't fully understand why yet. With a brand new 7.3.1611 container, the locales are as expected. a 'yum reinstall glibc-common' reduces the available locales to POSIX and C, reliably.

[mark-adams]

I've experienced the same issue. Updating glibc-common eliminates the en-US.UTF-8 locale which causes problems for a lot of applications.

Running localdef as suggested above worked for me but it would be great if we could either determine why glib-common's installation is removing the locale and/or rebuild the image so that it includes a newer version of glibc with the locale prebuilt again.

[andremarianiello]

I also noticed that reinstalling glibc-common would blow away the locales. I noticed that changing the line in /etc/yum.conf

override_install_langs=en_US.UTF-8

to

override_install_langs=en_US.utf8

and then reinstalling glibc-common will produce a en_US.utf8 locale (seen by locale -a). I think this line sets the _install_langs macro in the glibc specfile, which is in turn passed to build-locale-archive --install-langs. Since this command takes a colon-separated list of locales, you can specify multiple locales to be installed (see build-locale-archive --help for more info). If you want all the locales, you can set this line to all, or just remove it completely because the default value of %{_install_langs} is all.

I think the provided setting in /etc/yum.conf should be changed unless this is an issue with build-locale-archive.

[rchibiscus]

encounter this issue also. the workaround I use is to unset LC_ALL environment variable before running my program in Dockerfile like:

ENV LC_ALL=

please fix it as soon as possible. Thanks!

[ewanmellor]

This seems to have been fixed in the latest images. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that it was the locale-handling changes in this changeset: CentOS/sig-cloud-instance-build@b74306a

[ninrod]

I was just hit by this and localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8 from @robinst's comment saved me.

[jperrin]

This should be resolved once the latest 7 base image is merged in, changed in docker-library/official-images#2750

[kristi]

Looks like that PR is merged now.

[cdrage]

Since this was pushed here: https://github.com/docker-library/official-images/pull/2750/files could we close this issue?

[jperrin]

yup.

[davehowell]

I've had this issue on Centos 8 image, when I ran locale it showed LC_CTYPE empty and some errors like

locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory

I found running yum install glibc-langpack-en was the only way to fix it, as per this https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1677927#c7

There is a comment that says

These files are deliberately deleted from the base install used to create the minimal image. This is done to make the overall image smaller.

[hrw]

On AArch64 running "yum update glibc-common" from 2.17-260 to 2.17-292 removes every locale other than C and POSIX.

On x86-64 it ends in C, POSIX, en_US.utf8 being defined.

[zazazack]

Problem

ERROR: Failed to set locale, defaulting to C

Steps to reproduce

$ docker pull centos:latest
$ docker run -it centos
[root@docker]# uname -a
Linux 1698c6775409 4.9.184-linuxkit #1 SMP Tue Jul 2 22:58:16 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[root@docker]# yum update -y && yum clean all. # per docker hub readme.md
[root@docker]# yum search python
Failed to set locale, defaulting to C  # ERROR
Last metadata expiration check: 0:09:02 ago on Sat Nov  2 17:57:53 2019.
Dependencies resolved.

Resolution

[root@docker]# yum -y install glibc-langpack-en.x86_64
[root@docker]# yum search python
Last metadata expiration check: 0:09:10 ago on Sat 02 Nov 2019 05:57:53 PM UTC.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.

[RCornish74]

@zazazack I get an error trying to install that package
No package glibc-langpack-en.x86_64 available.

[zhengyu88]

Hi,

I am still seeing this problem when I use the centos:centos7 image:

$ docker run -it --rm centos:centos7 /bin/bash                    
[root@ab125c35c3cf /]# locale
LANG=
LC_CTYPE="POSIX"
LC_NUMERIC="POSIX"
LC_TIME="POSIX"
LC_COLLATE="POSIX"
LC_MONETARY="POSIX"
LC_MESSAGES="POSIX"
LC_PAPER="POSIX"
LC_NAME="POSIX"
LC_ADDRESS="POSIX"
LC_TELEPHONE="POSIX"
LC_MEASUREMENT="POSIX"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="POSIX"
LC_ALL=

[DesKonstantin]

For 'alt linux' way to fix it:

apt-get install glibc-locales glibc-timezones