non-us keyboard layout not setup in initramfs

[William Daniau]

Description: Ubuntu Artful Aardvark (development branch)
Release: 17.10

In Artful the /etc/console/cached.kmap.gz file does not exists, in its place, it uses some files with more precise names susch as cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz. However the initramfs scripts still uses cached.kmap.gz . The consequence is that the keyboard layout remains US in the initramfs which is a problem for full encrypted installation when entering passphrase.
Proposed solution is to make a symbolic link from cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz to cached.kmap.gz. Then the initramfs tools will find the /etc/console/cached.kmap.gz file and includes it in the initramfs.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Romain Fluttaz (botux)]

Thanks !
So quick solve :

Open a terminal [Ctrl]+[Maj]+[t]

sudo ln -s /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz /etc/console-setup/cached.kmap.gz
sudo update-initramfs -u

So now we can come back to a complex encryption disk password without to have to find/guess the us correspondence !

I just remember, but in the installer, the keyboard setup is after we choose disk encryption password. So some people who didn't know this bug and that their keyboard where in English keyboard layout, they might not really now their real password ! Fun !

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

The hooks are shipped in console-setup.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Hmm, the behavior from the bug description (or well, not exactly, but the backspace was added to the filename then) was introduced in 1.71, before xenial.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

So, are we sure that problem does not exist in 16.04?

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

We are sure. Odd thing.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package console-setup - 1.178ubuntu1

---------------
console-setup (1.178ubuntu1) bionic; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable. Remaining changes:
    - Add an apport hook.
    - If the locale is C during configuration, only set CHARMAP to ISO-8859-15
      on kFreeBSD; otherwise restore the previous behaviour from before the
      kFreeBSD port of using UTF-8 in that case.
    - Change the default font from Fixed to VGA for Lat15; while it's not
      entirely complete, it looks better and is largely good enough.
    - Set keymap and font in the initramfs if possible and sensible.
    - debian/vtrgb, debian/vtrgb.vga,
      debian/console-setup-linux.setvtrgb.service, debian/rules,
      debian/console-setup-linux.postinst: use Ubuntu's virtual terminal color
      scheme by default, with a VGA color scheme available as an alternative.
    - Don't copy keyboard-configuration questions to /target in OEM mode.
      oem-config will ask them later, and copying these confuses it.
    - Tolerate absence of setupcon in postinst scripts.
    - Added templates for keyboard detection.
    - If the detect-keyboard debconf plugin is available
      (cdebconf-newt-detect-keys in the installer), then offer to use it to
      detect the keyboard layout.
    - Fix default keyboard selection for language/country combinations
      lacking a proper combined locale.
    - Map ppc64el/* to XKBMODEL=pc105.
    - keyboard_present.sh: Quiet config/postinst when we have no USB devices.
    - debian/preprocessor: revert the removal of keyboard names (for size) of
      console-setup-udeb: we do need those, since we don't use the simplified
      xkb-keymap template from Debian just yet: this way we can still show
      country/language names when selecting a keyboard, layout or variant.
    - Don't make debian/copyright a symlink to COPYRIGHT, this is disallowed
      by the Ubuntu archive installer.
    - Include pc105.tree for ubiquity; make sure it gets built.
    - Add Keyboard/Makefile rule to build pc105.tree.
    - Fix command injection in ckbcomp.
    - Generate a locale locally for translating keyboard names in
      kbdnames-maker.
    - xmlreader, KeyboardNames.pl: Added model entry to skip model selection.
    - setupcon:
      - the variables are taken from a config file which, if changed,
        invalidates the cache.
      - there is only ever one keyboard map per system.
      - the system should not have to resolve filenames to find the keymap cache
        on boot.
      - Map XKBMODEL=SKIP to '' for compatibility with existing
        configs.
      - Explicitly exit 0, so that postinsts don't fail in the event that
        loadkeys can't find a console.
    - Handle unattended upgrades without breaking plymouth when updating
      console fonts.
    - debian/rules: revert hard-coding of a list of "debconf-selectable"
      layouts for the udebs, since we don't use this debconf question in Ubuntu
      and all layouts are selectable.
    - Make sure we give a meaningful name to ch layouts: "Switzerland" instead
      of "German (Switzerland), since it includes French too.
    - Add console-setup-tty and the ude...

[Michael Aaron Murphy (mmstick76)]

Are we sure that this is fixed? It seems to still be happening.

[INF1 (inf1-2)]

Hello,

I have been having this issue for a while now... at least 5-years (using an azerty board). I have still use the encryption drive for security reasons...

Today, when I type the password at boot time to decrypt the drive, I can't get access to it ? If I boot up with a with a USB version and type the same password to decrypt the connected drive it works fine? Anyone knows whazup? Thx !