Provided by: systemd-standalone-tmpfiles_256.5-2ubuntu3_amd64 
NAME
systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-
early.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service,
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer - Create, delete, and clean up files and directories
SYNOPSIS
systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
System units:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.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 files and directories, using the
configuration file format and location specified in tmpfiles.d(5). Historically, it was
designed to manage volatile and temporary files, as the name suggests, but it provides
generic file management functionality and can be used to manage any kind of files. It must
be invoked with one or more commands --create, --remove, and --clean, to select the
respective subset of operations.
If invoked with no arguments, directives from the configuration files found in the
directories specified by tmpfiles.d(5) are executed. When invoked with positional
arguments, if option --replace=PATH is specified, arguments specified on the command line
are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise, just the configuration
specified by the command line arguments is executed. If the string "-" is specified
instead of a filename, the configuration is read from standard input. If the argument is a
file name (without any slashes), all configuration directories are searched for a matching
file and the file found that has the highest priority is executed. If the argument is a
path, that file is used directly without searching the configuration directories for any
other matching file.
System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.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).
COMMANDS AND OPTIONS
The following commands are understood:
--create
If this command 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 command is passed, all files and directories with an age parameter configured
will be cleaned up.
--remove
If this command is passed, the contents of directories marked with D or R, and files
or directories themselves marked with r or R are removed unless an exclusive or shared
BSD lock is taken on them (see flock(2)).
--purge
If this option is passed, all files and directories marked for creation by the
tmpfiles.d/ files specified on the command line will be deleted. Specifically, this
acts on all files and directories marked with f, F, d, D, v, q, Q, p, L, c, b, C, w,
e. If this switch is used at least one tmpfiles.d/ file (or - for standard input) must
be specified on the command line or the invocation will be refused, for safety reasons
(as otherwise much of the installed system files might be removed).
The primary usecase for this option is to automatically remove files and directories
that originally have been created on behalf of an installed packaged at package
removal time.
It is recommended to first run this command in combination with --dry-run (see below)
to verify which files and directories will be deleted.
Warning! This is usually not the command you want! In most cases --remove is what you
are looking for.
Added in version 256.
--user
Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d files in user configuration
directories.
Added in version 236.
--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.
Added in version 209.
--graceful
Ignore configuration lines pertaining to unknown users or groups. This option is
intended to be used in early boot before all users or groups have been created.
Added in version 254.
--dry-run
Process the configuration and print what operations would be performed, but don't
actually change anything in the file system.
Added in version 256.
--prefix=path
Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option can be
specified multiple times.
Added in version 212.
--exclude-prefix=path
Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option can be
specified multiple times.
Added in version 207.
-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.
Added in version 247.
--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.
Added in version 212.
--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.
Added in version 247.
--image-policy=policy
Takes an image policy string as argument, as per systemd.image-policy(7). The policy
is enforced when operating on the disk image specified via --image=, see above. If not
specified defaults to the "*" policy, i.e. all recognized file systems in the image
are used.
--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.
Added in version 238.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each file, the filename
is printed as a comment.
--tldr
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Only the "interesting" parts of
the configuration files are printed, comments and empty lines are skipped. 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
ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see systemd.exec(5) 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.
Added in version 252.
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). Takes a comma-separated list of values. A value
may be 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. Each value may optionally be prefixed with one of console, syslog, kmsg
or journal followed by a colon to set the maximum log level for that specific log
target (e.g. SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug,console:info specifies to log at debug level
except when logging to the console which should be at info level). Note that the
global maximum log level takes priority over any per target maximum log levels.
$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.
Note that setting the regular $LESS environment variable has no effect for less
invocations by systemd tools.
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).
Note that setting the regular $LESSCHARSET environment variable has no effect for less
invocations by systemd tools.
$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