NAME

       systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service,
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer - Creates, deletes and cleans
       up volatile and temporary files and directories

SYNOPSIS

       systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]

       System units:

       systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
       systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer

       User units:

       systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer

DESCRIPTION

       systemd-tmpfiles creates, deletes, and cleans up volatile and temporary files and
       directories, using the configuration file format and location specified in tmpfiles.d(5).
       It must be invoked with one or more options --create, --remove, and --clean, to select the
       respective subset of operations.

       By default, directives from all configuration files are applied. When invoked with
       --replace=PATH, arguments specified on the command line are used instead of the
       configuration file PATH. Otherwise, if one or more absolute filenames are passed on the
       command line, only the directives in these files are applied. If "-" is specified instead
       of a filename, directives are read from standard input. If only the basename of a
       configuration file is specified, all configuration directories as specified in
       tmpfiles.d(5) are searched for a matching file and the file found that has the highest
       priority is executed.

       System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service,
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service) invoke systemd-tmpfiles to create system files and to
       perform system wide cleanup. Those services read administrator-controlled configuration
       files in tmpfiles.d/ directories. User services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service,
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service) also invoke systemd-tmpfiles, but it reads a separate set
       of files, which includes user-controlled files under ~/.config/user-tmpfiles.d/ and
       ~/.local/share/user-tmpfiles.d/, and administrator-controlled files under
       /usr/share/user-tmpfiles.d/. Users may use this to create and clean up files under their
       control, but the system instance performs global cleanup and is not influenced by user
       configuration. Note that this means a time-based cleanup configured in the system
       instance, such as the one typically configured for /tmp/, will thus also affect files
       created by the user instance if they are placed in /tmp/, even if the user instance's
       time-based cleanup is turned off.

       To re-apply settings after configuration has been modified, simply restart
       systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, which will apply any settings which can be safely executed
       at runtime. To debug systemd-tmpfiles, it may be useful to invoke it directly from the
       command line with increased log level (see $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL below).

OPTIONS

       The following options are understood:

       --create
           If this option is passed, all files and directories marked with f, F, w, d, D, v, p,
           L, c, b, m in the configuration files are created or written to. Files and directories
           marked with z, Z, t, T, a, and A have their ownership, access mode and security labels
           set.

       --clean
           If this option is passed, all files and directories with an age parameter configured
           will be cleaned up.

       --remove
           If this option is passed, the contents of directories marked with D or R, and files or
           directories themselves marked with r or R are removed.

       --user
           Execute "user" configuration, i.e.  tmpfiles.d files in user configuration
           directories.

       --boot
           Also execute lines with an exclamation mark. Lines that are not safe to be executed on
           a running system may be marked in this way.  systemd-tmpfiles is executed in early
           boot with --boot specified and will execute those lines. When invoked again later, it
           should be called without --boot.

       --prefix=path
           Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option can be
           specified multiple times.

       --exclude-prefix=path
           Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option can be
           specified multiple times.

       -E
           A shortcut for "--exclude-prefix=/dev --exclude-prefix=/proc --exclude-prefix=/run
           --exclude-prefix=/sys", i.e. exclude the hierarchies typically backed by virtual or
           memory file systems. This is useful in combination with --root=, if the specified
           directory tree contains an OS tree without these virtual/memory file systems mounted
           in, as it is typically not desirable to create any files and directories below these
           subdirectories if they are supposed to be overmounted during runtime.

       --root=root
           Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed with the given
           alternate root path, including config search paths.

           When this option is used, the libc Name Service Switch (NSS) is bypassed for resolving
           users and groups. Instead the files /etc/passwd and /etc/group inside the alternate
           root are read directly. This means that users/groups not listed in these files will
           not be resolved, i.e. LDAP NIS and other complex databases are not considered.

           Consider combining this with -E to ensure the invocation does not create files or
           directories below mount points in the OS image operated on that are typically
           overmounted during runtime.

       --image=image
           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.

           Implies -E.

       --replace=PATH
           When this option is given, one or more positional arguments must be specified. All
           configuration files found in the directories listed in tmpfiles.d(5) will be read, and
           the configuration given on the command line will be handled instead of and with the
           same priority as the configuration file PATH.

           This option is intended to be used when package installation scripts are running and
           files belonging to that package are not yet available on disk, so their contents must
           be given on the command line, but the admin configuration might already exist and
           should be given higher priority.

       --cat-config
           Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each file, the filename
           is printed as a comment.

       --no-pager
           Do not pipe output into a pager.

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

       --version
           Print a short version string and exit.

       It is possible to combine --create, --clean, and --remove in one invocation (in which case
       removal and cleanup are executed before creation of new files). For example, during boot
       the following command line is executed to ensure that all temporary and volatile
       directories are removed and created according to the configuration file:

           systemd-tmpfiles --remove --create

CREDENTIALS

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

       "tmpfiles.extra"
           The contents of this credential may contain additional lines to operate on. The
           credential contents should follow the same format as any other tmpfiles.d/ drop-in
           configuration file. If this credential is passed it is processed after all of the
           drop-in files read from the file system. The lines in the credential can hence augment
           existing lines of the OS, but not override them.

       Note that by default the systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service unit file (and related unit files)
       is set up to inherit the "tmpfiles.extra" credential from the service manager.

ENVIRONMENT

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
           The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher log level, i.e. less
           important ones, will be suppressed). Either one of (in order of decreasing importance)
           emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, debug, or an integer in the range
           0...7. See syslog(3) for more information.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
           A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored according to priority.

           This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to the terminal,
           because journalctl(1) and other tools that display logs will color messages based on
           the log level on their own.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
           A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a timestamp.

           This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to the terminal or a
           file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display logs will attach timestamps
           based on the entry metadata on their own.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
           A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and line number in the
           source code where the message originates.

           Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal entries anyway.
           Including it directly in the message text can nevertheless be convenient when
           debugging programs.

       $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
           The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the attached tty),
           console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with prefixes encoding the log level and
           "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg (log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log
           to the journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to kmsg
           otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target automatically, the default),
           null (disable log output).

       $SYSTEMD_PAGER
           Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER
           nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known pager implementations are tried in turn,
           including less(1) and more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
           discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable to an empty string
           or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.

           Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER (as well as $PAGER) will be
           silently ignored.

       $SYSTEMD_LESS
           Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").

           Users might want to change two options in particular:

           K
               This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C is pressed. To
               allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch back to the pager command prompt,
               unset this option.

               If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the pager that is invoked
               is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the executable, and needs to be handled by the
               pager.

           X
               This option instructs the pager to not send termcap initialization and
               deinitialization strings to the terminal. It is set by default to allow command
               output to remain visible in the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless,
               this prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular paged output
               cannot be scrolled with the mouse.

           See less(1) for more discussion.

       $SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
           Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the invoking terminal is
           determined to be UTF-8 compatible).

       $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
           Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager is enabled; if
           false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, secure mode is enabled if
           the effective UID is not the same as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2)
           and sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set when invoking
           the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that open or create new files or start
           new subprocesses. When $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not
           known to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1) implements
           secure mode.)

           Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for example under sudo(8) or
           pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure that unintended interactive features are not
           enabled. "Secure" mode for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
           Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited environment allows
           the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER
           variables are to be honoured, $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be
           reasonable to completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.

       $SYSTEMD_COLORS
           Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities will use colors in
           their output, otherwise the output will be monochrome. Additionally, the variable can
           take one of the following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors to
           the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be specified to override the
           automatic decision based on $TERM and what the console is connected to.

       $SYSTEMD_URLIFY
           The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links should be generated in
           the output for terminal emulators supporting this. This can be specified to override
           the decision that systemd makes based on $TERM and other conditions.

UNPRIVILEGED --CLEANUP OPERATION

       systemd-tmpfiles tries to avoid changing the access and modification times on the
       directories it accesses, which requires CAP_FOWNER privileges. When running as non-root,
       directories which are checked for files to clean up will have their access time bumped,
       which might prevent their cleanup.

EXIT STATUS

       On success, 0 is returned. If the configuration was syntactically invalid (syntax errors,
       missing arguments, ...), so some lines had to be ignored, but no other errors occurred, 65
       is returned (EX_DATAERR from /usr/include/sysexits.h). If the configuration was
       syntactically valid, but could not be executed (lack of permissions, creation of files in
       missing directories, invalid contents when writing to /sys/ values, ...), 73 is returned
       (EX_CANTCREAT from /usr/include/sysexits.h). Otherwise, 1 is returned (EXIT_FAILURE from
       /usr/include/stdlib.h).

       Note: when creating items, if the target already exists, but is of the wrong type or
       otherwise does not match the requested state, and forced operation has not been requested
       with "+", a message is emitted, but the failure is otherwise ignored.

SEE ALSO

       systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)

NOTES

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