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When I connect to my Linux server (Ubuntu 14.04) using putty I have some problems because the SSH-connection always uses ANSI_X3.4-1968 as charset (output of locale charmap).

However my system is configured to use de_DE.UTF-8 which can be seen by cat /etc/default/locale:

LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=POSIX

The used connection profile of putty uses UTF-8 as Remote character set (Window -> Translation). I also tried to use the value de_DE.UTF-8 here, but there was no change.

The strange thing is that when I log in on the physical console an execute locale charmap there I get the correct and expected result: UTF-8.

Why do I get different configured charsets using Putty (v0.67) and the physical console? Is this therefore a putty configuration problem, or is the problem on the linux server side?

Update 1:

I also compared the /etc/pam.d/sshd with one from a second similar server that is not affected by this problem and both files were identical. The same is true for the file /etc/ssh/ssh_config (both files contain the line SendEnv LANG LC_*).

I also executed the following commands to make sure the locales are not defect:

sudo locale-gen --purge
sudo update-locale LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
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This has nothing to do with PuTTY. What you've configured there is only the terminal character set, which tells PuTTY how to decode the text it receives – but doesn't pass it to the server in any way.

The locale settings ($LANG &c.) are loaded by the server itself – depending on the distro, either by source-ing /etc/default/locale from the shell's startup file (e.g. from /etc/profile), or by loading it via PAM using the pam_env module.

Grep your PAM configurations in /etc/pam.d for mentions of /etc/default/locale.

  • If you find a matching pam_env line directly in an app config such as /etc/pam.d/login, copy it to roughly the same place in /etc/pam.d/sshd. (Pay attention to where in the stack it's located.)

  • If you find a matching line in the shared common-session config, then make sure the sshd PAM configuration imports it (e.g. via @include common-session).

  • If you don't find anything in PAM, check the shell's startup files instead.

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  • Thanks for the answer. I learned a lot, unfortunately it did not solve my problem (see updated question).
    – Robert
    Commented Sep 9, 2016 at 8:32
  • You've compared /etc/pam.d/sshd, but have you compared the other files?
    – grawity_u1686
    Commented Sep 9, 2016 at 8:32
  • Just made an md5sum of /etc/pam.d/* and they are identical on both servers. But I found the important difference. It was /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Looks like someone removed important lines from it.
    – Robert
    Commented Sep 9, 2016 at 8:49

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