---
name: "install-keymap"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "console-common"
version: "0.7.91"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/install-keymap"
---

# install-keymap(8)

expand a given keymap and install it as boot-time keymap

## NAME

install-keymap — expand a given keymap and install it as boot-time keymap

## SYNOPSIS

**install-keymap** \[*keymap-name* \| NONE \| KERNEL\]

## DESCRIPTION

**install-keymap** usually takes a  *keymap-name* as argument.  The file is passed to  **loadkeys** for loading, so that valid values for this  argument are the same than that of arguments to  **loadkeys**.  **install-keymap** expands include-like  statements in that file, and puts the result in  **/etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz**, which will be  loaded into the kernel at boot-time.

One may also specify **KERNEL** instead of a keymap  name, causing **/etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz**     to be removed, making sure that no custom keymap will replace the  kernel's builtin keymap at next reboot.

An argument of **NONE** tells the command to do  nothing.  It can be used by caller scripts to avoid handling this  special case and needlessly duplicate code.

The purpose of this processing is to solve an annoying  problem, of 2 apparently conflicting issues.  The first one is an  important goal of keymap management in Debian, namely ensuring  that whenever the user or admin is expected to use the keyboard,  the keymap selected as boot-time keymap is in use; this means the  keymap has to be loaded before a shell is ever proposed, which  means very early in the booting process, and especially before all  local filesystems are mounted  (**/etc/rcS.d/S10checkroot.sh** can spawn  **sulogin**).

The second issue is that for flexibility we allow that  **/usr** or **/usr/share** may  live on their own partition(s), and thus  **/usr/share/keymaps**, where keymap files live,  may not be available for reading at the time we need a keymap  file.  And no, we won't put 1Mb of keymaps in the root  partition just for this.

And the problem is, most keymap files are not  self-contained, so it does not help to just copy the selected file  into the root partition.  The best known solution so far is to  expand the keymap file so that it becomes self-contained, and put  it in the root partition.  That's what this tool does.

## FILES

- **/etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz**

  Where the boot-time keymap is stored

## SEE ALSO

loadkeys (8).

## AUTHOR

This program and manual page were written by Yann Dirson  dirson@debian.org for the **Debian GNU/Linux** system, but as  it should not include any Debian-specific code, it may be used by  others.