Provided by: systemd_256.5-2ubuntu3.1_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