# Setting locale in one play and have the change take effect in subsequent plays **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [December 11, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136 "2012-12-11T21:42:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce73a5/32.png) [@Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lorin_Hochstein1)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 9:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/1 "2012-12-11T21:42:36Z")
In my playbooks, I need to set the locale, and have the changes go into effect so that in a subsequent play, when postgresql is installed it will use the appropriate locale settings. However, if I set the locale in one play using ansible, the locale change does not take effect in subsequent plays. I know that when you’re interacting with a traditional ssh session, you need to log out and back in for a locale change to take effect. What can I do to cause the locale setting change to take effect in subsequent plays? Note that I’m using ssh for transport, with default settings. See [https://gist.github.com/4262334](https://gist.github.com/4262334) for an example playbook, output, and my ansible.cfg file. Here you can see the issue being reproduced using the “ansible” $ ansible vagrant -s -m command -a “/usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en\_US.UTF-8 LC\_ALL=en\_US.UTF-8” [vagrant.nimbis.net](http://vagrant.nimbis.net) | success | rc=0 \>\> $ ansible vagrant -m command -a locale [vagrant.nimbis.net](http://vagrant.nimbis.net) | success | rc=0 \>\> LANG=C LANGUAGE= LC\_CTYPE=“en\_US” LC\_NUMERIC=“en\_US” LC\_TIME=“en\_US” LC\_COLLATE=“en\_US” LC\_MONETARY=“en\_US” LC\_MESSAGES=“en\_US” LC\_PAPER=“en\_US” LC\_NAME=“en\_US” LC\_ADDRESS=“en\_US” LC\_TELEPHONE=“en\_US” LC\_MEASUREMENT=“en\_US” LC\_IDENTIFICATION=“en\_US” LC\_ALL=en\_US If I connect via ssh, it shows the correct thing $ ssh vagrant locale LANG=en\_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE= 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=en\_US.UTF-8 $ ansible --version ansible 1.0 (devel 637883164e) last updated 2012/12/08 14:06:41 (GMT -400) Take care, Lorin ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca1)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/2 "2012-12-11T22:10:28Z")
Try removing the controlmaster option, it will slow things down but should correctly present you with updated locale on the remote side. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 12:13am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/3 "2012-12-12T00:13:34Z")
I should also add, in case someone wants to fiddle with it, the modules themselves set try to set the locale to C while they execute, partly to avoid encoding issues. Various underlying code here ([https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/module\_common.py](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/module_common.py)) and in runner/\_\_init\_\_.py Not sure if that is playing a role in things or not. --Michael ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca1)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/4 "2012-12-12T00:48:06Z")
Do you think we can pull that into a config (default C) that we can override on command line and/or playbook? Brian Coca ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Fromm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Stephen\_Fromm](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Stephen_Fromm)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/5 "2012-12-12T01:14:53Z")
You should be able to set module\_lang in your config or ANSIBLE\_MODULE\_LANG environment variable to change that (see [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/constants.py](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/constants.py)). Let us know if that doesn't work. sf ---
**Author:** ![Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce73a5/32.png) [@Lorin\_Hochstein1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Lorin_Hochstein1)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/setting-locale-in-one-play-and-have-the-change-take-effect-in-subsequent-plays/12136/6 "2012-12-14T18:36:30Z")
Thanks, Brian. In order to keep the speed boost with control master, I’m doing this as a workaround. vars: locale: en\_US.UTF-8 tasks: - name: workaround to install postgresql with locale set shell: LANG=$locale LC\_COLLATE=$locale LC\_CTYPE=$locale LC\_MESSAGES=$locale LC\_MONETARY=$locale LC\_NUMERIC=$locale LC\_TIME=$locale LC\_ALL=$locale apt-get install -y postgresql But it’s good to know that I can disable controlmaster if needed to avoid doing something ugly like this. Take care, Lorin