The /etc/vconsole.conf file configures the virtual console, i.e. keyboard mapping and console font. It is applied at boot by udev using 90-vconsole.rules file. You can safely mask this file if you want to avoid this kind of initialization.
The basic file format of the vconsole.conf is a newline-separated list of environment-like shell-compatible variable assignments. It is possible to source the configuration from shell scripts, however, beyond mere variable assignments no shell features are supported, allowing applications to read the file without implementing a shell compatible execution engine.
Note that the kernel command line options vconsole.keymap=, vconsole.keymap_toggle=, vconsole.font=, vconsole.font_map=, vconsole.font_unimap= may be used to override the console settings at boot.
Depending on the operating system other configuration files might be checked for configuration of the virtual console as well, however only as fallback.
/etc/vconsole.conf is usually created and updated using systemd-localed.service(8). localectl(1) may be used to instruct systemd-localed.service to query or update configuration.
The following options are understood:
KEYMAP=, KEYMAP_TOGGLE=
FONT=, FONT_MAP=, FONT_UNIMAP=
A few configuration parameters from vconsole.conf may be overridden on the kernel command line:
vconsole.keymap=, vconsole.keymap_toggle=
vconsole.font=, vconsole.font_map=, vconsole.font_unimap=
Example 1. German keyboard and console
/etc/vconsole.conf:
KEYMAP=de-latin1 FONT=eurlatgr
systemd(1), systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8), loadkeys(1), setfont(8), locale.conf(5), systemd-localed.service(8)