seatd-launch(1) General Commands Manual seatd-launch(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

seatd-launch - Start a process with its own seatd instance

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**seatd-launch** \[options] \[--] command

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

**-l <loglevel>**

Log-level to pass to seatd. See [**seatd**(1)](/man/enterprise-packages/seatd/seatd.1) for information about available log-levels.

**-h**

Show help message and quit.

**-v**

Show the version number and quit.

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

seatd-launch starts a seatd instance with a dedicated socket path, waits for it to be ready, and starts the specified command with SEATD\_SOCK set appropriately. Once the specified command terminates, the seatd instance is also terminated.

seatd requires root privileges to perform its tasks. This can be achieved through SUID of seatd-launch or by running seatd-launch as root. seatd-launch will drop privileges from the effective user to the real user before running the specified command. If the real user is root, this is simply a noop. You should only run seatd-launch as root if you intend for the specified command to run as root as well.

seatd-launch serves a similar purpose to the libseat "builtin" backend, but is superior to it for two reasons:

1\.

The specified command never runs as root

2\.

The standard seatd executable and libseat backend is used

# [EXIT STATUS](#EXIT_STATUS)

seatd-launch exits with the status of its child. When the child terminates on a signal *N*, seatd-launch exits with the status 128 + *N*.

If seatd-launch fails because of another error, it exits with a non-zero status.

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

The libseat library, **<libseat.h>**, [**seatd**(1)](/man/enterprise-packages/seatd/seatd.1)

# [AUTHORS](#AUTHORS)

Maintained by Kenny Levinsen <contact@kl.wtf>, who is assisted by other open-source contributors. For more information about seatd development, see https://sr.ht/~kennylevinsen/seatd.

2026-10-26

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Document: seatd-launch(1) from seatd 0.9.3-r5 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://git.sr.ht/~kennylevinsen/seatd