IdM client/server installation fails with "'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)" error.

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • IdM client/server installation fails with 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 1: ordinal not in range(128) error.
  • During this time, following logs can be seen in installation log file (ipaclient-install.log, ipaserver-install.log or ipareplica-install.log)
    2025-07-08T13:41:21Z DEBUG The ipa-client-install command failed, exception: UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)
    2025-07-08T13:41:21Z ERROR 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IdM) / FreeIPA

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