Default to UTF-8 in /var/log/cloud-init.log

[TheRealFalcon]

On a system with a non-utf8 default locale, the logger will silently not log anything if the message contains an unsupported character.

Specifically on Xenial, in the cloud-init process

import locale
print(locale.getpreferredencoding())

returns ANSI_X3.4-1968.

Interesting to note, running the same code on the CLI after cloud-init has completed returns UTF-8.

The StreamLogger (i.e., the stdout/stderr logger) suffers from the same problem, but there's no (non-hacky) way to alter its encoding.

[smoser]

Kind of just for reference... LP: #1751051.

The world is a strange place before there is a system locale set. That is the world in which you're first opening the log.

I'm sorry if this isn't relevant information, but it felt like it might be.

[OddBloke]

@smoser Agreed that it's a weird world at this point, and thanks for the context; I double-checked with Steve Langasek and he also couldn't think of a reason to not open it in UTF-8.

[OddBloke]

Thanks!

[xnox]

Ship it