Ubuntu Manpage: systemd-firstboot, systemd-firstboot.service - Initialize basic system settings on or

Provided by: systemd_253.5-1ubuntu6.1_amd64

NAME

       systemd-firstboot, systemd-firstboot.service - Initialize basic system settings on or
       before the first boot-up of a system

SYNOPSIS

       systemd-firstboot [OPTIONS...]

       systemd-firstboot.service

DESCRIPTION

       systemd-firstboot initializes the most basic system settings interactively on the first
       boot, or optionally non-interactively when a system image is created. The service is
       started if ConditionFirstBoot=yes is satisfied. This essentially means that /etc/ is
       empty, see systemd.unit(5) for details.

       The following settings may be set up:

       •   The system locale, more specifically the two locale variables LANG= and LC_MESSAGES

       •   The system keyboard map

       •   The system time zone

       •   The system hostname

       •   The machine ID of the system

       •   The root user's password

       Each of the fields may either be queried interactively by users, set non-interactively on
       the tool's command line, or be copied from a host system that is used to set up the system
       image.

       If a setting is already initialized, it will not be overwritten and the user will not be
       prompted for the setting.

       Note that this tool operates directly on the file system and does not involve any running
       system services, unlike localectl(1), timedatectl(1) or hostnamectl(1). This allows
       systemd-firstboot to operate on mounted but not booted disk images and in early boot. It
       is not recommended to use systemd-firstboot on the running system while it is up.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

--root=root
Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed with the given
alternate root path, including config search paths. This is useful to operate on a
system image mounted to the specified directory instead of the host system itself.

--image=path
Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If specified all operations
are applied to file system in the indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but
operates on file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The disk image should
either contain just a file system or a set of file systems within a GPT partition
table, following the Discoverable Partitions Specification[1]. For further information
on supported disk images, see systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.

--locale=LOCALE, --locale-messages=LOCALE
Sets the system locale, more specifically the LANG= and LC_MESSAGES settings. The
argument should be a valid locale identifier, such as "de_DE.UTF-8". This controls the
locale.conf(5) configuration file.

--keymap=KEYMAP
Sets the system keyboard layout. The argument should be a valid keyboard map, such as
"de-latin1". This controls the "KEYMAP" entry in the vconsole.conf(5) configuration
file.

--timezone=TIMEZONE
Sets the system time zone. The argument should be a valid time zone identifier, such
as "Europe/Berlin". This controls the localtime(5) symlink.

--hostname=HOSTNAME
Sets the system hostname. The argument should be a hostname, compatible with DNS. This
controls the hostname(5) configuration file.

--machine-id=ID
Sets the system's machine ID. This controls the machine-id(5) file.

--root-password=PASSWORD, --root-password-file=PATH,
--root-password-hashed=HASHED_PASSWORD
Sets the password of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd(5) and
shadow(5) files. This setting exists in three forms: --root-password= accepts the
password to set directly on the command line, --root-password-file= reads it from a
file and --root-password-hashed= accepts an already hashed password on the command
line. See shadow(5) for more information on the format of the hashed password. Note
that it is not recommended to specify plaintext passwords on the command line, as
other users might be able to see them simply by invoking ps(1).

--root-shell=SHELL
Sets the shell of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd(5) file.

--kernel-command-line=CMDLINE
Sets the system's kernel command line. This controls the /etc/kernel/cmdline file
which is used by kernel-install(8).

--prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap, --prompt-timezone, --prompt-hostname,
--prompt-root-password, --prompt-root-shell
Prompt the user interactively for a specific basic setting. Note that any explicit
configuration settings specified on the command line take precedence, and the user is
not prompted for it.

--prompt
Query the user for locale, keymap, timezone, hostname, root's password, and root's
shell. This is equivalent to specifying --prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap,
--prompt-timezone, --prompt-hostname, --prompt-root-password, --prompt-root-shell in
combination.

--copy-locale, --copy-keymap, --copy-timezone, --copy-root-password, --copy-root-shell
Copy a specific basic setting from the host. This only works in combination with
--root= (see above).

--copy
Copy locale, keymap, time zone, root password and shell from the host. This is
equivalent to specifying --copy-locale, --copy-keymap, --copy-timezone,
--copy-root-password, --copy-root-shell in combination.

--setup-machine-id
Initialize the system's machine ID to a random ID. This only works in combination with
--root=.

--force
systemd-firstboot doesn't modify existing files unless --force is specified. For
modifications to /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, systemd-firstboot only modifies the
entry of the "root" user instead of overwriting the entire file.

--delete-root-password
Removes the password of the system's root user, enabling login as root without a
password unless the root account is locked. Note that this is extremely insecure and
hence this option should not be used lightly.

--welcome=
Takes a boolean argument. By default when prompting the user for configuration options
a brief welcome text is shown before the first question is asked. Pass false to this
option to turn off the welcome text.

-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.

--version
Print a short version string and exit.

CREDENTIALS

systemd-firstboot supports the service credentials logic as implemented by
LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see systemd.exec(1) for details). The following
credentials are used when passed in:

"passwd.hashed-password.root", "passwd.plaintext-password.root"
A hashed or plaintext version of the root password to use, in place of prompting the
user. These credentials are equivalent to the same ones defined for the systemd-
sysusers.service(8) service.

"passwd.shell.root"
Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account. Equivalent to the
credential of the same name defined for the systemd-sysusers.service(8) service.

"firstboot.locale", "firstboot.locale-messages"
These credentials specify the locale settings to set during first boot, in place of
prompting the user.

"firstboot.keymap"
This credential specifies the keyboard setting to set during first boot, in place of
prompting the user.

Note the relationship to the "vconsole.keymap" credential understood by systemd-
vconsole-setup.service(8): both ultimately affect the same setting, but
firstboot.keymap is written into /etc/vconsole.conf on first boot (if not already
configured), and then read from there by systemd-vconsole-setup, while vconsole.keymap
is read on every boot, and is not persisted to disk (but any configuration in
vconsole.conf will take precedence if present).

"firstboot.timezone"
This credential specifies the system timezone setting to set during first boot, in
place of prompting the user.

Note that by default the systemd-firstboot.service unit file is set up to inherit the
listed credentials from the service manager. Thus, when invoking a container with an
unpopulated /etc/ for the first time it is possible to configure the root user's password
to be "systemd" like this:

# systemd-nspawn --image=... --set-credential=firstboot.locale:de_DE.UTF-8 ...

Note that these credentials are only read and applied during the first boot process. Once
they are applied they remain applied for subsequent boots, and the credentials are not
considered anymore.

EXIT STATUS

       On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

KERNEL COMMAND LINE

       systemd.firstboot=
           Takes a boolean argument, defaults to on. If off, systemd-firstboot.service won't
           interactively query the user for basic settings at first boot, even if those settings
           are not initialized yet.

NOTES

        1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
           https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification