diff --git a/conf/management-initscript b/conf/management-initscript
index 5c6e892d..dc62bc5d 100755
--- a/conf/management-initscript
+++ b/conf/management-initscript
@@ -25,6 +25,15 @@ SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
 START=yes
 EXEC_AS_USER=root
 
+# Ensure Python reads/writes files in UTF-8. If the machine
+# triggers some other locale in Python, like ASCII encoding,
+# Python may not be able to read/write files. Here and in
+# setup/functions.sh.
+export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
+export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_TYPE=en_US.UTF-8
+
 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
 
diff --git a/setup/functions.sh b/setup/functions.sh
index 23c2492b..9aab289b 100644
--- a/setup/functions.sh
+++ b/setup/functions.sh
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+# Ensure Python reads/writes files in UTF-8. If the machine
+# triggers some other locale in Python, like ASCII encoding,
+# Python may not be able to read/write files. Here and in
+# the management daemon startup script.
+export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
+export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+export LC_TYPE=en_US.UTF-8
+
 function hide_output {
 	# This function hides the output of a command unless the command fails
 	# and returns a non-zero exit code.