Ubuntu Manpage: systemd, init - systemd system and service manager

Provided by: systemd_256.5-2ubuntu4_amd64

NAME

       systemd, init - systemd system and service manager

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/lib/systemd/systemd [OPTIONS...]

       init [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}

DESCRIPTION

systemd is a system and service manager for Linux operating systems. When run as first
process on boot (as PID 1), it acts as init system that brings up and maintains userspace
services. Separate instances are started for logged-in users to start their services.

systemd is usually not invoked directly by the user, but is installed as the /sbin/init
symlink and started during early boot. The user manager instances are started
automatically through the user@.service(5) service.

For compatibility with SysV, if the binary is called as init and is not the first process
on the machine (PID is not 1), it will execute telinit and pass all command line arguments
unmodified. That means init and telinit are mostly equivalent when invoked from normal
login sessions. See telinit(8) for more information.

When run as a system instance, systemd interprets the configuration file system.conf and
the files in system.conf.d directories; when run as a user instance, systemd interprets
the configuration file user.conf and the files in user.conf.d directories. See systemd-
system.conf(5) for more information.

systemd contains native implementations of various tasks that need to be executed as part
of the boot process. For example, it sets the hostname or configures the loopback network
device. It also sets up and mounts various API file systems, such as /sys/, /proc/, and
/dev/.

Note that some but not all interfaces provided by systemd are covered by the Interface
Portability and Stability Promise[1].

The D-Bus API of systemd is described in org.freedesktop.systemd1(5) and
org.freedesktop.LogControl1(5).

Systems which invoke systemd in a container or initrd environment should implement the
Container Interface[2] or initrd Interface[3] specifications, respectively.

UNITS

systemd provides a dependency system between various entities called "units" of 11
different types. Units encapsulate various objects that are relevant for system boot-up
and maintenance. The majority of units are configured in unit configuration files, whose
syntax and basic set of options is described in systemd.unit(5), however some are created
automatically from other configuration files, dynamically from system state or
programmatically at runtime. Units may be "active" (meaning started, bound, plugged in,
..., depending on the unit type, see below), or "inactive" (meaning stopped, unbound,
unplugged, ...), as well as in the process of being activated or deactivated, i.e. between
the two states (these states are called "activating", "deactivating"). A special "failed"
state is available as well, which is very similar to "inactive" and is entered when the
service failed in some way (process returned error code on exit, or crashed, an operation
timed out, or after too many restarts). If this state is entered, the cause will be
logged, for later reference. Note that the various unit types may have a number of
additional substates, which are mapped to the five generalized unit states described here.

The following unit types are available:

1. Service units, which start and control daemons and the processes they consist of. For
details, see systemd.service(5).

2. Socket units, which encapsulate local IPC or network sockets in the system, useful for
socket-based activation. For details about socket units, see systemd.socket(5), for
details on socket-based activation and other forms of activation, see daemon(7).

3. Target units are useful to group units, or provide well-known synchronization points
during boot-up, see systemd.target(5).

4. Device units expose kernel devices in systemd and may be used to implement
device-based activation. For details, see systemd.device(5).

5. Mount units control mount points in the file system, for details see systemd.mount(5).

6. Automount units provide automount capabilities, for on-demand mounting of file systems
as well as parallelized boot-up. See systemd.automount(5).

7. Timer units are useful for triggering activation of other units based on timers. You
may find details in systemd.timer(5).

8. Swap units are very similar to mount units and encapsulate memory swap partitions or
files of the operating system. They are described in systemd.swap(5).

9. Path units may be used to activate other services when file system objects change or
are modified. See systemd.path(5).

10. Slice units may be used to group units which manage system processes (such as service
and scope units) in a hierarchical tree for resource management purposes. See
systemd.slice(5).

11. Scope units are similar to service units, but manage foreign processes instead of
starting them as well. See systemd.scope(5).

Units are named as their configuration files. Some units have special semantics. A
detailed list is available in systemd.special(7).

systemd knows various kinds of dependencies, including positive and negative requirement
dependencies (i.e. Requires= and Conflicts=) as well as ordering dependencies (After= and
Before=). NB: ordering and requirement dependencies are orthogonal. If only a requirement
dependency exists between two units (e.g. foo.service requires bar.service), but no
ordering dependency (e.g. foo.service after bar.service) and both are requested to start,
they will be started in parallel. It is a common pattern that both requirement and
ordering dependencies are placed between two units. Also note that the majority of
dependencies are implicitly created and maintained by systemd. In most cases, it should be
unnecessary to declare additional dependencies manually, however it is possible to do
this.

Application programs and units (via dependencies) may request state changes of units. In
systemd, these requests are encapsulated as 'jobs' and maintained in a job queue. Jobs may
succeed or can fail, their execution is ordered based on the ordering dependencies of the
units they have been scheduled for.

On boot systemd activates the target unit default.target whose job is to activate on-boot
services and other on-boot units by pulling them in via dependencies. Usually, the unit
name is just an alias (symlink) for either graphical.target (for fully-featured boots into
the UI) or multi-user.target (for limited console-only boots for use in embedded or server
environments, or similar; a subset of graphical.target). However, it is at the discretion
of the administrator to configure it as an alias to any other target unit. See
systemd.special(7) for details about these target units.

On first boot, systemd will enable or disable units according to preset policy. See
systemd.preset(5) and "First Boot Semantics" in machine-id(5).

systemd only keeps a minimal set of units loaded into memory. Specifically, the only units
that are kept loaded into memory are those for which at least one of the following
conditions is true:

1. It is in an active, activating, deactivating or failed state (i.e. in any unit state
except for "inactive")

2. It has a job queued for it

3. It is a dependency of at least one other unit that is loaded into memory

4. It has some form of resource still allocated (e.g. a service unit that is inactive but
for which a process is still lingering that ignored the request to be terminated)

5. It has been pinned into memory programmatically by a D-Bus call

systemd will automatically and implicitly load units from disk — if they are not loaded
yet — as soon as operations are requested for them. Thus, in many respects, the fact
whether a unit is loaded or not is invisible to clients. Use systemctl list-units --all to
comprehensively list all units currently loaded. Any unit for which none of the conditions
above applies is promptly unloaded. Note that when a unit is unloaded from memory its
accounting data is flushed out too. However, this data is generally not lost, as a journal
log record is generated declaring the consumed resources whenever a unit shuts down.

Processes systemd spawns are placed in individual Linux control groups named after the
unit which they belong to in the private systemd hierarchy. (see Control Groups v2[4] for
more information about control groups, or short "cgroups"). systemd uses this to
effectively keep track of processes. Control group information is maintained in the
kernel, and is accessible via the file system hierarchy (beneath /sys/fs/cgroup/), or in
tools such as systemd-cgls(1) or ps(1) (ps xawf -eo pid,user,cgroup,args is particularly
useful to list all processes and the systemd units they belong to.).

systemd is compatible with the SysV init system to a large degree: SysV init scripts are
supported and simply read as an alternative (though limited) configuration file format.
The SysV /dev/initctl interface is provided, and compatibility implementations of the
various SysV client tools are available. In addition to that, various established Unix
functionality such as /etc/fstab or the utmp database are supported.

systemd has a minimal transaction system: if a unit is requested to start up or shut down
it will add it and all its dependencies to a temporary transaction. Then, it will verify
if the transaction is consistent (i.e. whether the ordering of all units is cycle-free).
If it is not, systemd will try to fix it up, and removes non-essential jobs from the
transaction that might remove the loop. Also, systemd tries to suppress non-essential jobs
in the transaction that would stop a running service. Finally it is checked whether the
jobs of the transaction contradict jobs that have already been queued, and optionally the
transaction is aborted then. If all worked out and the transaction is consistent and
minimized in its impact it is merged with all already outstanding jobs and added to the
run queue. Effectively this means that before executing a requested operation, systemd
will verify that it makes sense, fixing it if possible, and only failing if it really
cannot work.

Note that transactions are generated independently of a unit's state at runtime, hence,
for example, if a start job is requested on an already started unit, it will still
generate a transaction and wake up any inactive dependencies (and cause propagation of
other jobs as per the defined relationships). This is because the enqueued job is at the
time of execution compared to the target unit's state and is marked successful and
complete when both satisfy. However, this job also pulls in other dependencies due to the
defined relationships and thus leads to, in our example, start jobs for any of those
inactive units getting queued as well.

Units may be generated dynamically at boot and system manager reload time, for example
based on other configuration files or parameters passed on the kernel command line. For
details, see systemd.generator(7).

DIRECTORIES

System unit directories
The systemd system manager reads unit configuration from various directories. Packages
that want to install unit files shall place them in the directory returned by
pkg-config systemd --variable=systemdsystemunitdir. Other directories checked are
/usr/local/lib/systemd/system and /usr/lib/systemd/system. User configuration always
takes precedence. pkg-config systemd --variable=systemdsystemconfdir returns the path
of the system configuration directory. Packages should alter the content of these
directories only with the enable and disable commands of the systemctl(1) tool. Full
list of directories is provided in systemd.unit(5).

User unit directories
Similar rules apply for the user unit directories. However, here the XDG Base
Directory specification[5] is followed to find units. Applications should place their
unit files in the directory returned by pkg-config systemd
--variable=systemduserunitdir. Global configuration is done in the directory reported
by pkg-config systemd --variable=systemduserconfdir. The enable and disable commands
of the systemctl(1) tool can handle both global (i.e. for all users) and private (for
one user) enabling/disabling of units. Full list of directories is provided in
systemd.unit(5).

SysV init scripts directory
The location of the SysV init script directory varies between distributions. If
systemd cannot find a native unit file for a requested service, it will look for a
SysV init script of the same name (with the .service suffix removed).

SysV runlevel link farm directory
The location of the SysV runlevel link farm directory varies between distributions.
systemd will take the link farm into account when figuring out whether a service shall
be enabled. Note that a service unit with a native unit configuration file cannot be
started by activating it in the SysV runlevel link farm.

SIGNALS

The service listens to various UNIX process signals that can be used to request various
actions asynchronously. The signal handling is enabled very early during boot, before any
further processes are invoked. However, a supervising container manager or similar that
intends to request these operations via this mechanism must take into consideration that
this functionality is not available during the earliest initialization phase. An
sd_notify() notification message carrying the X_SYSTEMD_SIGNALS_LEVEL=2 field is emitted
once the signal handlers are enabled, see below. This may be used to schedule submission
of these signals correctly.

SIGTERM
Upon receiving this signal the systemd system manager serializes its state, reexecutes
itself and deserializes the saved state again. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl
daemon-reexec.

systemd user managers will start the exit.target unit when this signal is received.
This is mostly equivalent to systemctl --user start exit.target
--job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

SIGINT
Upon receiving this signal the systemd system manager will start the
ctrl-alt-del.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl start
ctrl-alt-del.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly. If this signal is received more
than 7 times per 2s, an immediate reboot is triggered. Note that pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del
on the console will trigger this signal. Hence, if a reboot is hanging, pressing
Ctrl+Alt+Del more than 7 times in 2 seconds is a relatively safe way to trigger an
immediate reboot.

systemd user managers treat this signal the same way as SIGTERM.

SIGWINCH
When this signal is received the systemd system manager will start the
kbrequest.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl start kbrequest.target.

This signal is ignored by systemd user managers.

SIGPWR
When this signal is received the systemd manager will start the sigpwr.target unit.
This is mostly equivalent to systemctl start sigpwr.target.

SIGUSR1
When this signal is received the systemd manager will try to reconnect to the D-Bus
bus.

SIGUSR2
When this signal is received the systemd manager will log its complete state in
human-readable form. The data logged is the same as printed by systemd-analyze dump.

SIGHUP
Reloads the complete daemon configuration. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl
daemon-reload.

SIGRTMIN+0
Enters default mode, starts the default.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl isolate default.target.

SIGRTMIN+1
Enters rescue mode, starts the rescue.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl isolate rescue.target.

SIGRTMIN+2
Enters emergency mode, starts the emergency.service unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl isolate emergency.service.

SIGRTMIN+3
Halts the machine, starts the halt.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl
start halt.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

SIGRTMIN+4
Powers off the machine, starts the poweroff.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl start poweroff.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

SIGRTMIN+5
Reboots the machine, starts the reboot.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl start reboot.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

SIGRTMIN+6
Reboots the machine via kexec, starts the kexec.target unit. This is mostly equivalent
to systemctl start kexec.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

SIGRTMIN+7
Reboots userspace, starts the soft-reboot.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl start soft-reboot.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly.

Added in version 254.

SIGRTMIN+13
Immediately halts the machine.

SIGRTMIN+14
Immediately powers off the machine.

SIGRTMIN+15
Immediately reboots the machine.

SIGRTMIN+16
Immediately reboots the machine with kexec.

SIGRTMIN+17
Immediately reboots the userspace.

Added in version 254.

SIGRTMIN+20
Enables display of status messages on the console, as controlled via
systemd.show_status=1 on the kernel command line.

SIGRTMIN+21
Disables display of status messages on the console, as controlled via
systemd.show_status=0 on the kernel command line.

SIGRTMIN+22
Sets the service manager's log level to "debug", in a fashion equivalent to
systemd.log_level=debug on the kernel command line.

SIGRTMIN+23
Restores the log level to its configured value. The configured value is derived from –
in order of priority – the value specified with systemd.log-level= on the kernel
command line, or the value specified with LogLevel= in the configuration file, or the
built-in default of "info".

Added in version 239.

SIGRTMIN+24
Immediately exits the manager (only available for --user instances).

Added in version 195.

SIGRTMIN+25
Upon receiving this signal the systemd manager will reexecute itself. This is mostly
equivalent to systemctl daemon-reexec except that it will be done asynchronously.

The systemd system manager treats this signal the same way as SIGTERM.

Added in version 250.

SIGRTMIN+26
Restores the log target to its configured value. The configured value is derived from
– in order of priority – the value specified with systemd.log-target= on the kernel
command line, or the value specified with LogTarget= in the configuration file, or the
built-in default.

Added in version 239.

SIGRTMIN+27, SIGRTMIN+28
Sets the log target to "console" on SIGRTMIN+27 (or "kmsg" on SIGRTMIN+28), in a
fashion equivalent to systemd.log_target=console (or systemd.log_target=kmsg on
SIGRTMIN+28) on the kernel command line.

Added in version 239.

ENVIRONMENT

The environment block for the system manager is initially set by the kernel. (In
particular, "key=value" assignments on the kernel command line are turned into environment
variables for PID 1). For the user manager, the system manager sets the environment as
described in the "Environment Variables in Spawned Processes" section of systemd.exec(5).
The DefaultEnvironment= setting in the system manager applies to all services including
user@.service. Additional entries may be configured (as for any other service) through the
Environment= and EnvironmentFile= settings for user@.service (see systemd.exec(5)). Also,
additional environment variables may be set through the ManagerEnvironment= setting in
systemd-system.conf(5) and systemd-user.conf(5).

Some of the variables understood by systemd:

$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.

This can be overridden with --log-level=.

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

This can be overridden with --log-color=.

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

This can be overridden with --log-time=.

Added in version 246.

$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.

This can be overridden with --log-location=.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_TID
A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with the current numerical thread ID
(TID).

Added in version 247.

$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).

This can be overridden with --log-target=.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_RATELIMIT_KMSG
Whether to ratelimit kmsg or not. Takes a boolean. Defaults to "true". If disabled,
systemd will not ratelimit messages written to kmsg.

Added in version 254.

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, $XDG_DATA_HOME, $XDG_DATA_DIRS
The systemd user manager uses these variables in accordance to the XDG Base Directory
specification[5] to find its configuration.

$SYSTEMD_UNIT_PATH, $SYSTEMD_GENERATOR_PATH, $SYSTEMD_ENVIRONMENT_GENERATOR_PATH
Controls where systemd looks for unit files and generators.

These variables may contain a list of paths, separated by colons (":"). When set, if
the list ends with an empty component ("...:"), this list is prepended to the usual
set of paths. Otherwise, the specified list replaces the usual set of paths.

$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.

$LISTEN_PID, $LISTEN_FDS, $LISTEN_FDNAMES
Set by systemd for supervised processes during socket-based activation. See
sd_listen_fds(3) for more information.

$NOTIFY_SOCKET
Set by service manager for its services for status and readiness notifications. Also
consumed by service manager for notifying supervising container managers or service
managers up the stack about its own progress. See sd_notify(3) and the relevant
section below for more information.

For further environment variables understood by systemd and its various components, see
Known Environment Variables[6].

KERNEL COMMAND LINE

When run as the system instance, systemd parses a number of options listed below. They can
be specified as kernel command line arguments which are parsed from a number of sources
depending on the environment in which systemd is executed. If run inside a Linux
container, these options are parsed from the command line arguments passed to systemd
itself, next to any of the command line options listed in the Options section above. If
run outside of Linux containers, these arguments are parsed from /proc/cmdline and from
the "SystemdOptions" EFI variable (on EFI systems) instead. Options from /proc/cmdline
have higher priority.

Note: use of "SystemdOptions" is deprecated.

The following variables are understood:

systemd.unit=, rd.systemd.unit=
Overrides the unit to activate on boot. Defaults to default.target. This may be used
to temporarily boot into a different boot unit, for example rescue.target or
emergency.service. See systemd.special(7) for details about these units. The option
prefixed with "rd." is honored only in the initrd, while the one that is not prefixed
only in the main system.

systemd.dump_core
Takes a boolean argument or enables the option if specified without an argument. If
enabled, the systemd manager (PID 1) dumps core when it crashes. Otherwise, no core
dump is created. Defaults to enabled.

Added in version 233.

systemd.crash_chvt
Takes a positive integer, or a boolean argument. Can be also specified without an
argument, with the same effect as a positive boolean. If a positive integer (in the
range 1–63) is specified, the system manager (PID 1) will activate the specified
virtual terminal when it crashes. Defaults to disabled, meaning that no such switch is
attempted. If set to enabled, the virtual terminal the kernel messages are written to
is used instead.

Added in version 233.

systemd.crash_shell
Takes a boolean argument or enables the option if specified without an argument. If
enabled, the system manager (PID 1) spawns a shell when it crashes, after a 10s delay.
Otherwise, no shell is spawned. Defaults to disabled, for security reasons, as the
shell is not protected by password authentication.

Added in version 233.

systemd.crash_action=
Takes one of "freeze", "reboot" or "poweroff". Defaults to "freeze". If set to
"freeze", the system will hang indefinitely when the system manager (PID 1) crashes.
If set to "reboot", the system manager (PID 1) will reboot the machine automatically
when it crashes, after a 10s delay. If set to "poweroff", the system manager (PID 1)
will power off the machine immediately when it crashes. If combined with
systemd.crash_shell, the configured crash action is executed after the shell exits.

Added in version 256.

systemd.confirm_spawn
Takes a boolean argument or a path to the virtual console where the confirmation
messages should be emitted. Can be also specified without an argument, with the same
effect as a positive boolean. If enabled, the system manager (PID 1) asks for
confirmation when spawning processes using /dev/console. If a path or a console name
(such as "ttyS0") is provided, the virtual console pointed to by this path or
described by the give name will be used instead. Defaults to disabled.

Added in version 233.

systemd.service_watchdogs=
Takes a boolean argument. If disabled, all service runtime watchdogs (WatchdogSec=)
and emergency actions (e.g. OnFailure= or StartLimitAction=) are ignored by the
system manager (PID 1); see systemd.service(5). Defaults to enabled, i.e. watchdogs
and failure actions are processed normally. The hardware watchdog is not affected by
this option.

Added in version 237.

systemd.show_status
Takes a boolean argument or the constants error and auto. Can be also specified
without an argument, with the same effect as a positive boolean. If enabled, the
systemd manager (PID 1) shows terse service status updates on the console during
bootup. With error, only messages about failures are shown, but boot is otherwise
quiet. auto behaves like false until there is a significant delay in boot. Defaults
to enabled, unless quiet is passed as kernel command line option, in which case it
defaults to error. If specified overrides the system manager configuration file option
ShowStatus=, see systemd-system.conf(5).

Added in version 233.

systemd.status_unit_format=
Takes name, description or combined as the value. If name, the system manager will use
unit names in status messages. If combined, the system manager will use unit names and
description in status messages. When specified, overrides the system manager
configuration file option StatusUnitFormat=, see systemd-system.conf(5).

Added in version 243.

systemd.log_color, systemd.log_level=, systemd.log_location, systemd.log_target=,
systemd.log_time, systemd.log_tid, systemd.log_ratelimit_kmsg
Controls log output, with the same effect as the $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR,
$SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL, $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION, $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET, $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME,
$SYSTEMD_LOG_TID and $SYSTEMD_LOG_RATELIMIT_KMSG environment variables described
above. systemd.log_color, systemd.log_location, systemd.log_time, systemd.log_tid and
systemd.log_ratelimit_kmsg can be specified without an argument, with the same effect
as a positive boolean.

systemd.default_standard_output=, systemd.default_standard_error=
Controls default standard output and error output for services and sockets. That is,
controls the default for StandardOutput= and StandardError= (see systemd.exec(5) for
details). Takes one of inherit, null, tty, journal, journal+console, kmsg,
kmsg+console. If the argument is omitted systemd.default-standard-output= defaults to
journal and systemd.default-standard-error= to inherit.

systemd.setenv=
Takes a string argument in the form VARIABLE=VALUE. May be used to set default
environment variables to add to forked child processes. May be used more than once to
set multiple variables.

systemd.machine_id=
Takes a 32 character hex value to be used for setting the machine-id. Intended mostly
for network booting where the same machine-id is desired for every boot.

Added in version 229.

systemd.set_credential=, systemd.set_credential_binary=
Sets a system credential, which can then be propagated to system services using the
ImportCredential= or LoadCredential= setting, see systemd.exec(5) for details. Takes a
pair of credential name and value, separated by a colon. The systemd.set_credential=
parameter expects the credential value in literal text form, the
systemd.set_credential_binary= parameter takes binary data encoded in Base64. Note
that the kernel command line is typically accessible by unprivileged programs in
/proc/cmdline. Thus, this mechanism is not suitable for transferring sensitive data.
Use it only for data that is not sensitive (e.g. public keys/certificates, rather than
private keys), or in testing/debugging environments.

For further information see System and Service Credentials[7] documentation.

Added in version 251.

systemd.import_credentials=
Takes a boolean argument. If false disables importing credentials from the kernel
command line, the DMI/SMBIOS OEM string table, the qemu_fw_cfg subsystem or the EFI
kernel stub.

Added in version 251.

quiet
Turn off status output at boot, much like systemd.show_status=no would. Note that this
option is also read by the kernel itself and disables kernel log output. Passing this
option hence turns off the usual output from both the system manager and the kernel.

Added in version 186.

debug
Turn on debugging output. This is equivalent to systemd.log_level=debug. Note that
this option is also read by the kernel itself and enables kernel debug output. Passing
this option hence turns on the debug output from both the system manager and the
kernel.

Added in version 205.

emergency, rd.emergency, -b
Boot into emergency mode. This is equivalent to systemd.unit=emergency.target or
rd.systemd.unit=emergency.target, respectively, and provided for compatibility reasons
and to be easier to type.

Added in version 186.

rescue, rd.rescue, single, s, S, 1
Boot into rescue mode. This is equivalent to systemd.unit=rescue.target or
rd.systemd.unit=rescue.target, respectively, and provided for compatibility reasons
and to be easier to type.

Added in version 186.

2, 3, 4, 5
Boot into the specified legacy SysV runlevel. These are equivalent to
systemd.unit=runlevel2.target, systemd.unit=runlevel3.target,
systemd.unit=runlevel4.target, and systemd.unit=runlevel5.target, respectively, and
provided for compatibility reasons and to be easier to type.

Added in version 186.

locale.LANG=, locale.LANGUAGE=, locale.LC_CTYPE=, locale.LC_NUMERIC=, locale.LC_TIME=,
locale.LC_COLLATE=, locale.LC_MONETARY=, locale.LC_MESSAGES=, locale.LC_PAPER=,
locale.LC_NAME=, locale.LC_ADDRESS=, locale.LC_TELEPHONE=, locale.LC_MEASUREMENT=,
locale.LC_IDENTIFICATION=
Set the system locale to use. This overrides the settings in /etc/locale.conf. For
more information, see locale.conf(5) and locale(7).

Added in version 186.

For other kernel command line parameters understood by components of the core OS, please
refer to kernel-command-line(7).

SYSTEM CREDENTIALS

During initialization the service manager will import credentials from various sources
into the system's set of credentials, which can then be propagated into services and
consumed by generators:

• When the service manager first initializes it will read system credentials from SMBIOS
Type 11 vendor strings io.systemd.credential:name=value, and
io.systemd.credential.binary:name=value.

• At the same time it will import credentials from QEMU "fw_cfg". (Note that the SMBIOS
mechanism is generally preferred, because it is faster and generic.)

• Credentials may be passed via the kernel command line, using the
systemd.set-credential= parameter, see above.

• Credentials may be passed from the UEFI environment via systemd-stub(7).

• When the service manager is invoked during the initrd → host transition it will import
all files in /run/credentials/@initrd/ as system credentials.

Invoke systemd-creds(1) as follows to see the list of credentials passed into the system:

# systemd-creds --system list

For further information see System and Service Credentials[7] documentation.

The service manager when run as PID 1 consumes the following system credentials:

vmm.notify_socket
Contains a AF_VSOCK or AF_UNIX address where to send a READY=1 notification message
when the service manager has completed booting. See sd_notify(3) and the next section
for more information. Note that in case the hypervisor does not support SOCK_DGRAM
over AF_VSOCK, SOCK_SEQPACKET will be tried instead. The credential payload for
AF_VSOCK should be a string in the form "vsock:CID:PORT". "vsock-stream",
"vsock-dgram" and "vsock-seqpacket" can be used instead of "vsock" to force usage of
the corresponding socket type.

This feature is useful for machine managers or other processes on the host to receive
a notification via VSOCK when a virtual machine has finished booting.

Added in version 254.

system.machine_id
Takes a 128bit hexadecimal ID to initialize /etc/machine-id from, if the file is not
set up yet. See machine-id(5) for details.

Added in version 254.

For a list of system credentials various other components of systemd consume, see
systemd.system-credentials(7).

READINESS PROTOCOL

The service manager implements a readiness notification protocol both between the manager
and its services (i.e. down the stack), and between the manager and a potential supervisor
further up the stack (the latter could be a machine or container manager, or in case of a
per-user service manager the system service manager instance). The basic protocol (and the
suggested API for it) is described in sd_notify(3).

The notification socket the service manager (including PID 1) uses for reporting readiness
to its own supervisor is set via the usual $NOTIFY_SOCKET environment variable (see
above). Since this is directly settable only for container managers and for the per-user
instance of the service manager, an additional mechanism to configure this is available,
in particular intended for use in VM environments: the vmm.notify_socket system credential
(see above) may be set to a suitable socket (typically an AF_VSOCK one) via SMBIOS Type 11
vendor strings. For details see above.

The notification protocol from the service manager up the stack towards a supervisor
supports a number of extension fields that allow a supervisor to learn about specific
properties of the system and track its boot progress. Specifically the following fields
are sent:

• An X_SYSTEMD_HOSTNAME=... message will be sent out once the initial hostname for the
system has been determined. Note that during later runtime the hostname might be
changed again programmatically, and (currently) no further notifications are sent out
in that case.

Added in version 256.

• An X_SYSTEMD_MACHINE_ID=... message will be sent out once the machine ID of the
system has been determined. See machine-id(5) for details.

Added in version 256.

• An X_SYSTEMD_SIGNALS_LEVEL=... message will be sent out once the service manager
installed the various UNIX process signal handlers described above. The field's value
is an unsigned integer formatted as decimal string, and indicates the supported UNIX
process signal feature level of the service manager. Currently, only a single feature
level is defined:

• X_SYSTEMD_SIGNALS_LEVEL=2 covers the various UNIX process signals documented above
– which are a superset of those supported by the historical SysV init system.

Signals sent to PID 1 before this message is sent might not be handled correctly yet.
A consumer of these messages should parse the value as an unsigned integer indication
the level of support. For now only the mentioned level 2 is defined, but later on
additional levels might be defined with higher integers, that will implement a
superset of the currently defined behaviour.

Added in version 256.

• X_SYSTEMD_UNIT_ACTIVE=... and X_SYSTEMD_UNIT_INACTIVE=... messages will be sent out
for each target unit as it becomes active or stops being active. This is useful to
track boot progress and functionality. For example, once the ssh-access.target unit is
reported started SSH access is typically available, see systemd.special(7) for
details.

Added in version 256.

• An X_SYSTEMD_SHUTDOWN=... message will be sent out very shortly before the system
shuts down. The value is one of the strings "reboot", "halt", "poweroff", "kexec" and
indicates which kind of shutdown is being executed.

Added in version 256.

• An X_SYSTEMD_REBOOT_PARAMETER=... message will also be sent out very shortly before
the system shuts down. Its value is the reboot argument as configured with systemctl
--reboot-argument=....

Added in version 256.

Note that these extension fields are sent in addition to the regular "READY=1" and
"RELOADING=1" notifications.

OPTIONS

systemd is only very rarely invoked directly, since it is started early and is already
running by the time users may interact with it. Normally, tools like systemctl(1) are used
to give commands to the manager. Since systemd is usually not invoked directly, the
options listed below are mostly useful for debugging and special purposes.

Introspection and debugging options
Those options are used for testing and introspection, and systemd may be invoked with them
at any time:

--dump-configuration-items
Dump understood unit configuration items. This outputs a terse but complete list of
configuration items understood in unit definition files.

--dump-bus-properties
Dump exposed bus properties. This outputs a terse but complete list of properties
exposed on D-Bus.

Added in version 239.

--test
Determine the initial start-up transaction (i.e. the list of jobs enqueued at
start-up), dump it and exit — without actually executing any of the determined jobs.
This option is useful for debugging only. Note that during regular service manager
start-up additional units not shown by this operation may be started, because
hardware, socket, bus or other kinds of activation might add additional jobs as the
transaction is executed. Use --system to request the initial transaction of the system
service manager (this is also the implied default), combine with --user to request the
initial transaction of the per-user service manager instead.

--system, --user
When used in conjunction with --test, selects whether to calculate the initial
transaction for the system instance or for a per-user instance. These options have no
effect when invoked without --test, as during regular (i.e. non---test) invocations
the service manager will automatically detect whether it shall operate in system or
per-user mode, by checking whether the PID it is run as is 1 or not. Note that it is
not supported booting and maintaining a system with the service manager running in
--system mode but with a PID other than 1.

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

--version
Print a short version string and exit.

Options that duplicate kernel command line settings
Those options correspond directly to options listed above in "Kernel Command Line". Both
forms may be used equivalently for the system manager, but it is recommended to use the
forms listed above in this context, because they are properly namespaced. When an option
is specified both on the kernel command line and as a normal command line argument, the
latter has higher precedence.

When systemd is used as a user manager, the kernel command line is ignored and only the
options described below are understood. Nevertheless, systemd is usually started in this
mode through the user@.service(5) service, which is shared between all users. It may be
more convenient to use configuration files to modify settings (see systemd-user.conf(5)),
or environment variables. See the "Environment" section above for a discussion of how the
environment block is set.

--unit=
Set default unit to activate on startup. If not specified, defaults to default.target.
See systemd.unit= above.

--dump-core
Enable core dumping on crash. This switch has no effect when running as user instance.
Same as systemd.dump_core= above.

--crash-vt=VT
Switch to a specific virtual console (VT) on crash. This switch has no effect when
running as user instance. Same as systemd.crash_chvt= above (but not the different
spelling!).

Added in version 227.

--crash-shell
Run a shell on crash. This switch has no effect when running as user instance. See
systemd.crash_shell= above.

--crash-action=
Specify what to do when the system manager (PID 1) crashes. This switch has no effect
when systemd is running as user instance. See systemd.crash_action= above.

Added in version 256.

--confirm-spawn
Ask for confirmation when spawning processes. This switch has no effect when run as
user instance. See systemd.confirm_spawn above.

--show-status
Show terse unit status information on the console during boot-up and shutdown. See
systemd.show_status above.

Added in version 244.

--log-color
Highlight important log messages. See systemd.log_color above.

Added in version 244.

--log-level=
Set log level. See systemd.log_level above.

--log-location
Include code location in log messages. See systemd.log_location above.

Added in version 244.

--log-target=
Set log target. See systemd.log_target above.

--log-time=
Prefix console messages with timestamp. See systemd.log_time above.

Added in version 246.

--machine-id=
Override the machine-id set on the hard drive. See systemd.machine_id= above.

Added in version 229.

--service-watchdogs
Globally enable/disable all service watchdog timeouts and emergency actions. See
systemd.service_watchdogs above.

Added in version 237.

--default-standard-output=, --default-standard-error=
Sets the default output or error output for all services and sockets, respectively.
See systemd.default_standard_output= and systemd.default_standard_error= above.

SOCKETS AND FIFOS

       /run/systemd/notify
           Daemon status notification socket. This is an AF_UNIX datagram socket and is used to
           implement the daemon notification logic as implemented by sd_notify(3).

       /run/systemd/private
           Used internally as communication channel between systemctl(1) and the systemd process.
           This is an AF_UNIX stream socket. This interface is private to systemd and should not
           be used in external projects.

       /dev/initctl
           Limited compatibility support for the SysV client interface, as implemented by the
           systemd-initctl.service unit. This is a named pipe in the file system. This interface
           is obsolete and should not be used in new applications.

HISTORY

       systemd 252
           Kernel command-line arguments systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy and
           systemd.legacy_systemd_cgroup_controller were deprecated. Please switch to the unified
           cgroup hierarchy.

           Added in version 252.

NOTES

        1. Interface Portability and Stability Promise
           https://systemd.io/PORTABILITY_AND_STABILITY/

        2. Container Interface
           https://systemd.io/CONTAINER_INTERFACE

        3. initrd Interface
           https://systemd.io/INITRD_INTERFACE/

        4. Control Groups v2
           https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.html

        5. XDG Base Directory specification
           https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

        6. Known Environment Variables
           https://systemd.io/ENVIRONMENT

        7. System and Service Credentials
           https://systemd.io/CREDENTIALS

        8. systemd Homepage
           https://systemd.io/

        9. Original Design Document
           https://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

UNITS

DIRECTORIES

SIGNALS

ENVIRONMENT

KERNEL COMMAND LINE

SYSTEM CREDENTIALS

READINESS PROTOCOL

OPTIONS

SOCKETS AND FIFOS

HISTORY

SEE ALSO

NOTES