Provided by: systemd-container_229-4ubuntu21.31_amd64 bug

NAME

       machinectl - Control the systemd machine manager

SYNOPSIS

       machinectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [NAME...]

DESCRIPTION

       machinectl may be used to introspect and control the state of the systemd(1) virtual
       machine and container registration manager systemd-machined.service(8).

       machinectl may be used to execute operations on machines and images. Machines in this
       sense are considered running instances of:

       •   Virtual Machines (VMs) that virtualize hardware to run full operating system (OS)
           instances (including their kernels) in a virtualized environment on top of the host
           OS.

       •   Containers that share the hardware and OS kernel with the host OS, in order to run OS
           userspace instances on top the host OS.

       •   The host system itself

       Machines are identified by names that follow the same rules as UNIX and DNS host names,
       for details, see below. Machines are instantiated from disk or file system images that
       frequently — but not necessarily — carry the same name as machines running from them.
       Images in this sense are considered:

       •   Directory trees containing an OS, including its top-level directories /usr, /etc, and
           so on.

       •   btrfs subvolumes containing OS trees, similar to normal directory trees.

       •   Binary "raw" disk images containing MBR or GPT partition tables and Linux file system
           partitions.

       •   The file system tree of the host OS itself.

OPTIONS

       The following options are understood:

       -p, --property=
           When showing machine or image properties, limit the output to certain properties as
           specified by the argument. If not specified, all set properties are shown. The
           argument should be a property name, such as "Name". If specified more than once, all
           properties with the specified names are shown.

       -a, --all
           When showing machine or image properties, show all properties regardless of whether
           they are set or not.

           When listing VM or container images, do not suppress images beginning in a dot
           character (".").

       -l, --full
           Do not ellipsize process tree entries.

       --no-ask-password
           Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.

       --kill-who=
           When used with kill, choose which processes to kill. Must be one of leader, or all to
           select whether to kill only the leader process of the machine or all processes of the
           machine. If omitted, defaults to all.

       -s, --signal=
           When used with kill, choose which signal to send to selected processes. Must be one of
           the well-known signal specifiers, such as SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGSTOP. If omitted,
           defaults to SIGTERM.

       --uid=
           When used with the shell command, chooses the user ID to open the interactive shell
           session as. If this switch is not specified, defaults to "root". Note that this switch
           is not supported for the login command (see below).

       --setenv=
           When used with the shell command, sets an environment variable to pass to the executed
           shell. Takes a pair of environment variable name and value, separated by "=" as
           argument. This switch may be used multiple times to set multiple environment
           variables. Note that this switch is not supported for the login command (see below).

       --mkdir
           When used with bind, creates the destination directory before applying the bind mount.

       --read-only
           When used with bind, applies a read-only bind mount.

       -n, --lines=
           When used with status, controls the number of journal lines to show, counting from the
           most recent ones. Takes a positive integer argument. Defaults to 10.

       -o, --output=
           When used with status, controls the formatting of the journal entries that are shown.
           For the available choices, see journalctl(1). Defaults to "short".

       --verify=
           When downloading a container or VM image, specify whether the image shall be verified
           before it is made available. Takes one of "no", "checksum" and "signature". If "no",
           no verification is done. If "checksum" is specified, the download is checked for
           integrity after the transfer is complete, but no signatures are verified. If
           "signature" is specified, the checksum is verified and the image's signature is
           checked against a local keyring of trustable vendors. It is strongly recommended to
           set this option to "signature" if the server and protocol support this. Defaults to
           "signature".

       --force
           When downloading a container or VM image, and a local copy by the specified local
           machine name already exists, delete it first and replace it by the newly downloaded
           image.

       --format=
           When used with the export-tar or export-raw commands, specifies the compression format
           to use for the resulting file. Takes one of "uncompressed", "xz", "gzip", "bzip2". By
           default, the format is determined automatically from the image file name passed.

       -H, --host=
           Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname
           separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a
           container name, separated by ":", which connects directly to a specific container on
           the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance.
           Container names may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.

       -M, --machine=
           Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.

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

       --no-legend
           Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer with hints.

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

       --version
           Print a short version string and exit.

COMMANDS

       The following commands are understood:

   Machine Commands
       list
           List currently running (online) virtual machines and containers. To enumerate machine
           images that can be started, use list-images (see below). Note that this command hides
           the special ".host" machine by default. Use the --all switch to show it.

       status NAME...
           Show runtime status information about one or more virtual machines and containers,
           followed by the most recent log data from the journal. This function is intended to
           generate human-readable output. If you are looking for computer-parsable output, use
           show instead. Note that the log data shown is reported by the virtual machine or
           container manager, and frequently contains console output of the machine, but not
           necessarily journal contents of the machine itself.

       show [NAME...]
           Show properties of one or more registered virtual machines or containers or the
           manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be shown.
           If an NAME is specified, properties of this virtual machine or container are shown. By
           default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select
           specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be used
           whenever computer-parsable output is required, and does not print the cgroup tree or
           journal entries. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

       start NAME...
           Start a container as a system service, using systemd-nspawn(1). This starts
           systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified machine name, similar to the
           effect of systemctl start on the service name.  systemd-nspawn looks for a container
           image by the specified name in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below)
           and runs it. Use list-images (see below) for listing available container images to
           start.

           Note that systemd-machined.service(8) also interfaces with a variety of other
           container and VM managers, systemd-nspawn is just one implementation of it. Most of
           the commands available in machinectl may be used on containers or VMs controlled by
           other managers, not just systemd-nspawn. Starting VMs and container images on those
           managers requires manager-specific tools.

           To interactively start a container on the command line with full access to the
           container's console, please invoke systemd-nspawn directly. To stop a running
           container use machinectl poweroff, see below.

       login [NAME]
           Open an interactive terminal login session in a container or on the local host. If an
           argument is supplied, it refers to the container machine to connect to. If none is
           specified, or the container name is specified as the empty string, or the special
           machine name ".host" (see below) is specified, the connection is made to the local
           host instead. This will create a TTY connection to a specific container or the local
           host and asks for the execution of a getty on it. Note that this is only supported for
           containers running systemd(1) as init system.

           This command will open a full login prompt on the container or the local host, which
           then asks for username and password. Use shell (see below) or systemd-run(1) with the
           --machine= switch to directly invoke a single command, either interactively or in the
           background.

       shell [[NAME@]NAME [PATH [ARGUMENTS...]]]
           Open an interactive shell session in a container or on the local host. The first
           argument refers to the container machine to connect to. If none is specified, or the
           machine name is specified as the empty string, or the special machine name ".host"
           (see below) is specified, the connection is made to the local host instead. This works
           similar to login but immediately invokes a user process. This command runs the
           specified executable with the specified arguments, or /bin/sh if none is specified. By
           default, opens a "root" shell, but by using --uid=, or by prefixing the machine name
           with a username and an "@" character, a different user may be selected. Use --setenv=
           to set environment variables for the executed process.

           When using the shell command without arguments, (thus invoking the executed shell or
           command on the local host), it is in many ways similar to a su(1) session, but, unlike
           su, completely isolates the new session from the originating session, so that it
           shares no process or session properties, and is in a clean and well-defined state. It
           will be tracked in a new utmp, login, audit, security and keyring session, and will
           not inherit any environment variables or resource limits, among other properties.

           Note that systemd-run(1) may be used in place of the shell command, and allows more
           detailed, low-level configuration of the invoked unit. However, it is frequently more
           privileged than the shell command.

       enable NAME..., disable NAME...
           Enable or disable a container as a system service to start at system boot, using
           systemd-nspawn(1). This enables or disables systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for
           the specified machine name, similar to the effect of systemctl enable or systemctl
           disable on the service name.

       poweroff NAME...
           Power off one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by sending SIGRTMIN+4 to
           the container's init process, which causes systemd-compatible init systems to shut
           down cleanly. This operation does not work on containers that do not run a
           systemd(1)-compatible init system, such as sysvinit. Use terminate (see below) to
           immediately terminate a container or VM, without cleanly shutting it down.

       reboot NAME...
           Reboot one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by sending SIGINT to the
           container's init process, which is roughly equivalent to pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a
           non-containerized system, and is compatible with containers running any system
           manager.

       terminate NAME...
           Immediately terminates a virtual machine or container, without cleanly shutting it
           down. This kills all processes of the virtual machine or container and deallocates all
           resources attached to that instance. Use poweroff to issue a clean shutdown request.

       kill NAME...
           Send a signal to one or more processes of the virtual machine or container. This means
           processes as seen by the host, not the processes inside the virtual machine or
           container. Use --kill-who= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to select
           the signal to send.

       bind NAME PATH [PATH]
           Bind mounts a directory from the host into the specified container. The first
           directory argument is the source directory on the host, the second directory argument
           is the destination directory in the container. When the latter is omitted, the
           destination path in the container is the same as the source path on the host. When
           combined with the --read-only switch, a ready-only bind mount is created. When
           combined with the --mkdir switch, the destination path is first created before the
           mount is applied. Note that this option is currently only supported for systemd-
           nspawn(1) containers.

       copy-to NAME PATH [PATH]
           Copies files or directories from the host system into a running container. Takes a
           container name, followed by the source path on the host and the destination path in
           the container. If the destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is
           used.

       copy-from NAME PATH [PATH]
           Copies files or directories from a container into the host system. Takes a container
           name, followed by the source path in the container the destination path on the host.
           If the destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is used.

   Image Commands
       list-images
           Show a list of locally installed container and VM images. This enumerates all raw disk
           images and container directories and subvolumes in /var/lib/machines/ (and other
           search paths, see below). Use start (see above) to run a container off one of the
           listed images. Note that, by default, containers whose name begins with a dot (".")
           are not shown. To show these too, specify --all. Note that a special image ".host"
           always implicitly exists and refers to the image the host itself is booted from.

       image-status [NAME...]
           Show terse status information about one or more container or VM images. This function
           is intended to generate human-readable output. Use show-image (see below) to generate
           computer-parsable output instead.

       show-image [NAME...]
           Show properties of one or more registered virtual machine or container images, or the
           manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be shown.
           If an NAME is specified, properties of this virtual machine or container image are
           shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To
           select specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be
           used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use image-status if you are
           looking for formatted human-readable output.

       clone NAME NAME
           Clones a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of the image to clone
           and the name of the newly cloned image. Note that plain directory container images are
           cloned into subvolume images with this command. Note that cloning a container or VM
           image is optimized for btrfs file systems, and might not be efficient on others, due
           to file system limitations.

           Note that this command leaves host name, machine ID and all other settings that could
           identify the instance unmodified. The original image and the cloned copy will hence
           share these credentials, and it might be necessary to manually change them in the
           copy.

       rename NAME NAME
           Renames a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of the image to rename
           and the new name of the image.

       read-only NAME [BOOL]
           Marks or (unmarks) a container or VM image read-only. Takes a VM or container image
           name, followed by a boolean as arguments. If the boolean is omitted, positive is
           implied, i.e. the image is marked read-only.

       remove NAME...
           Removes one or more container or VM images. The special image ".host", which refers to
           the host's own directory tree, may not be removed.

       set-limit [NAME] BYTES
           Sets the maximum size in bytes that a specific container or VM image, or all images,
           may grow up to on disk (disk quota). Takes either one or two parameters. The first,
           optional parameter refers to a container or VM image name. If specified, the size
           limit of the specified image is changed. If omitted, the overall size limit of the sum
           of all images stored locally is changed. The final argument specifies the size limit
           in bytes, possibly suffixed by the usual K, M, G, T units. If the size limit shall be
           disabled, specify "-" as size.

           Note that per-container size limits are only supported on btrfs file systems. Also
           note that, if set-limit is invoked without an image parameter, and /var/lib/machines
           is empty, and the directory is not located on btrfs, a btrfs loopback file is
           implicitly created as /var/lib/machines.raw with the given size, and mounted to
           /var/lib/machines. The size of the loopback may later be readjusted with set-limit, as
           well. If such a loopback-mounted /var/lib/machines directory is used, set-limit
           without an image name alters both the quota setting within the file system as well as
           the loopback file and file system size itself.

   Image Transfer Commands
       pull-tar URL [NAME]
           Downloads a .tar container image from the specified URL, and makes it available under
           the specified local machine name. The URL must be of type "http://" or "https://", and
           must refer to a .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.xz or .tar.bz2 archive file. If the local machine
           name is omitted, it is automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with
           its suffix removed.

           The image is verified before it is made available, unless --verify=no is specified.
           Verification is done via SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.gpg files that need to be made
           available on the same web server, under the same URL as the .tar file, but with the
           last component (the filename) of the URL replaced. With --verify=checksum, only the
           SHA256 checksum for the file is verified, based on the SHA256SUMS file. With
           --verify=signature, the SHA256SUMS file is first verified with detached GPG signature
           file SHA256SUMS.gpg. The public key for this verification step needs to be available
           in /usr/lib/systemd/import-pubring.gpg or /etc/systemd/import-pubring.gpg.

           The container image will be downloaded and stored in a read-only subvolume in
           /var/lib/machines/ that is named after the specified URL and its HTTP etag. A writable
           snapshot is then taken from this subvolume, and named after the specified local name.
           This behavior ensures that creating multiple container instances of the same URL is
           efficient, as multiple downloads are not necessary. In order to create only the
           read-only image, and avoid creating its writable snapshot, specify "-" as local
           machine name.

           Note that the read-only subvolume is prefixed with .tar-, and is thus not shown by
           list-images, unless --all is passed.

           Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not abort the download.
           Use cancel-transfer, described below.

       pull-raw URL [NAME]
           Downloads a .raw container or VM disk image from the specified URL, and makes it
           available under the specified local machine name. The URL must be of type "http://" or
           "https://". The container image must either be a .qcow2 or raw disk image, optionally
           compressed as .gz, .xz, or .bz2. If the local machine name is omitted, it is
           automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with its suffix removed.

           Image verification is identical for raw and tar images (see above).

           If the downloaded image is in .qcow2 format it is converted into a raw image file
           before it is made available.

           Downloaded images of this type will be placed as read-only .raw file in
           /var/lib/machines/. A local, writable (reflinked) copy is then made under the
           specified local machine name. To omit creation of the local, writable copy pass "-" as
           local machine name.

           Similar to the behavior of pull-tar, the read-only image is prefixed with .raw-, and
           thus not shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.

           Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not abort the download.
           Use cancel-transfer, described below.

       import-tar FILE [NAME], import-raw FILE [NAME]
           Imports a TAR or RAW container or VM image, and places it under the specified name in
           /var/lib/machines/. When import-tar is used, the file specified as the first argument
           should be a tar archive, possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2. It will then be
           unpacked into its own subvolume in /var/lib/machines. When import-raw is used, the
           file should be a qcow2 or raw disk image, possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2.
           If the second argument (the resulting image name) is not specified, it is
           automatically derived from the file name. If the file name is passed as "-", the image
           is read from standard input, in which case the second argument is mandatory.

           Both pull-tar and pull-raw will resize /var/lib/machines.raw and the filesystem
           therein as necessary. Optionally, the --read-only switch may be used to create a
           read-only container or VM image. No cryptographic validation is done when importing
           the images.

           Much like image downloads, ongoing imports may be listed with list-transfers and
           aborted with cancel-transfer.

       export-tar NAME [FILE], export-raw NAME [FILE]
           Exports a TAR or RAW container or VM image and stores it in the specified file. The
           first parameter should be a VM or container image name. The second parameter should be
           a file path the TAR or RAW image is written to. If the path ends in ".gz", the file is
           compressed with gzip, if it ends in ".xz", with xz, and if it ends in ".bz2", with
           bzip2. If the path ends in neither, the file is left uncompressed. If the second
           argument is missing, the image is written to standard output. The compression may also
           be explicitly selected with the --format= switch. This is in particular useful if the
           second parameter is left unspecified.

           Much like image downloads and imports, ongoing exports may be listed with
           list-transfers and aborted with cancel-transfer.

           Note that, currently, only directory and subvolume images may be exported as TAR
           images, and only raw disk images as RAW images.

       list-transfers
           Shows a list of container or VM image downloads, imports and exports that are
           currently in progress.

       cancel-transfers ID...
           Aborts a download, import or export of the container or VM image with the specified
           ID. To list ongoing transfers and their IDs, use list-transfers.

MACHINE AND IMAGE NAMES

       The machinectl tool operates on machines and images whose names must be chosen following
       strict rules. Machine names must be suitable for use as host names following a
       conservative subset of DNS and UNIX/Linux semantics. Specifically, they must consist of
       one or more non-empty label strings, separated by dots. No leading or trailing dots are
       allowed. No sequences of multiple dots are allowed. The label strings may only consist of
       alphanumeric characters as well as the dash and underscore. The maximum length of a
       machine name is 64 characters.

       A special machine with the name ".host" refers to the running host system itself. This is
       useful for execution operations or inspecting the host system as well. Note that
       machinectl list will not show this special machine unless the --all switch is specified.

       Requirements on image names are less strict, however, they must be valid UTF-8, must be
       suitable as file names (hence not be the single or double dot, and not include a slash),
       and may not contain control characters. Since many operations search for an image by the
       name of a requested machine, it is recommended to name images in the same strict fashion
       as machines.

       A special image with the name ".host" refers to the image of the running host system. It
       hence conceptually maps to the special ".host" machine name described above. Note that
       machinectl list-images will not show this special image either, unless --all is specified.

FILES AND DIRECTORIES

       Machine images are preferably stored in /var/lib/machines/, but are also searched for in
       /usr/local/lib/machines/ and /usr/lib/machines/. For compatibility reasons, the directory
       /var/lib/container/ is searched, too. Note that images stored below /usr are always
       considered read-only. It is possible to symlink machines images from other directories
       into /var/lib/machines/ to make them available for control with machinectl.

       Note that many image operations are only supported, efficient or atomic on btrfs file
       systems. Due to this, if the pull-tar, pull-raw, import-tar, import-raw and set-limit
       commands notice that /var/lib/machines is empty and not located on btrfs, they will
       implicitly set up a loopback file /var/lib/machines.raw containing a btrfs file system
       that is mounted to /var/lib/machines. The size of this loopback file may be controlled
       dynamically with set-limit.

       Disk images are understood by systemd-nspawn(1) and machinectl in three formats:

       •   A simple directory tree, containing the files and directories of the container to
           boot.

       •   Subvolumes (on btrfs file systems), which are similar to the simple directories,
           described above. However, they have additional benefits, such as efficient cloning and
           quota reporting.

       •   "Raw" disk images, i.e. binary images of disks with a GPT or MBR partition table.
           Images of this type are regular files with the suffix ".raw".

       See systemd-nspawn(1) for more information on image formats, in particular its
       --directory= and --image= options.

EXAMPLES

       Example 1. Download an Ubuntu image and open a shell in it

           # machinectl pull-tar https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-root.tar.gz
           # systemd-nspawn -M trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-root

       This downloads and verifies the specified .tar image, and then uses systemd-nspawn(1) to
       open a shell in it.

       Example 2. Download a Fedora image, set a root password in it, start it as service

           # machinectl pull-raw --verify=no http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/fedora/linux/releases/21/Cloud/Images/x86_64/Fedora-Cloud-Base-20141203-21.x86_64.raw.xz
           # systemd-nspawn -M Fedora-Cloud-Base-20141203-21
           # passwd
           # exit
           # machinectl start Fedora-Cloud-Base-20141203-21
           # machinectl login Fedora-Cloud-Base-20141203-21

       This downloads the specified .raw image with verification disabled. Then, a shell is
       opened in it and a root password is set. Afterwards the shell is left, and the machine
       started as system service. With the last command a login prompt into the container is
       requested.

       Example 3. Exports a container image as tar file

           # machinectl export-tar fedora myfedora.tar.xz

       Exports the container "fedora" as an xz-compressed tar file myfedora.tar.xz into the
       current directory.

       Example 4. Create a new shell session

           # machinectl shell --uid=lennart

       This creates a new shell session on the local host for the user ID "lennart", in a
       su(1)-like fashion.

EXIT STATUS

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

ENVIRONMENT

       $SYSTEMD_PAGER
           Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. Setting this to an empty
           string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.

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

SEE ALSO

       systemd-machined.service(8), systemd-nspawn(1), systemd.special(7), tar(1), xz(1),
       gzip(1), bzip2(1)