| SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) | systemd-tmpfiles | SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) |
.SH "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
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP 408u
systemd-tmpfiles
[OPTIONS...]
[CONFIGFILE...]
.PP System units:
.PP User units:
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP 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.
.PP 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.
.PP 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.
.PP 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).
.SH "COMMANDS AND OPTIONS"
.PP The following commands are understood:
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP --clean
If this command is passed, all files and directories with an age parameter
configured will be cleaned up.
.RE
.PP --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)).
.RE
.PP --purge
If this option is passed, all files and directories declared for
creation and marked with the $ character 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
package 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.
.RE
.PP --user
Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d/ files in user
configuration directories.
Added in version 236.
.RE
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP -n, --dry-run
Process the configuration and print what operations would be performed, but
do not actually change anything in the file system. The short option
-n was added in version 262.
Added in version 256.
.RE
.PP --inline
Treat each positional argument as a separate configuration line instead of a
file name.
Added in version 261.
.RE
.PP --prefix=path
Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option
can be specified multiple times.
Added in version 212.
.RE
.PP --exclude-prefix=path
Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This option can
be specified multiple times.
Added in version 207.
.RE
.PP -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.
.RE
.PP --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.
Note that this is not a sandboxing or security feature. tmpfiles.d(5)
definitions are potentially not processed in a hermetic fashion to the
specified root.
Added in version 212.
.RE
.PP --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 UAPI.2
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.
.RE
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP --cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each file, the
filename is printed as a comment.
.RE
.PP --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.
.RE
.PP --no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
.RE
.PP -h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
.RE
.PP --version
Print a short version string and exit.
.RE
.PP 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
.SH "CREDENTIALS"
.PP 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:
.PP 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.
.RE
.PP 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.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT"
.PP $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.
.RE
.PP $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.
.RE
.PP $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.
.RE
.PP $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.
.RE
.PP $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).
.RE
.PP $SYSTEMD_PAGER, $PAGER
Pager to use when --no-pager is not given. $SYSTEMD_PAGER is
used if set; otherwise $PAGER is used. If neither
$SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known pager
implementations is tried in turn, including less(1) and
more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
discovered, no pager is invoked. Setting those environment variables to an
empty string or the value cat is equivalent to passing
--no-pager.
Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER and
$PAGER can only be used to disable the pager (with cat or ), and are
otherwise ignored.
.RE
.PP $SYSTEMD_LESS
Override the options passed to less (by default FRSXMK).
Users might want to change two options in particular:
.PP 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.
.RE
.PP 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.
.RE
.sp
Note that setting the regular $LESS environment variable has no effect
for less invocations by systemd tools.
See less(1) for more discussion.
.RE
.PP $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.
.RE
.PP $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
Common pager commands like less(1), in addition to "paging",
i.e. scrolling through the output, support opening of or writing to other
files and running arbitrary shell commands. When commands are invoked with
elevated privileges, for example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1),
the pager becomes a security boundary. Care must be taken that only programs
with strictly limited functionality are used as pagers, and unintended
interactive features like opening or creation of new files or starting of
subprocesses are not allowed. "Secure mode" for the pager may be
enabled as described below, if the pager supports that (most pagers
are not written in a way that takes this into consideration). It is
recommended to either explicitly enable "secure mode" or to
completely disable the pager using --no-pager or PAGER=cat
when allowing untrusted users to execute commands with elevated
privileges.
This option takes a boolean argument. When set to true, the "secure
mode" of the pager is enabled. In "secure mode",
LESSSECURE=1 will be set when invoking the pager, which instructs the
pager to disable commands that open or create new files or start new
subprocesses. Currently only less(1) is known to understand this
variable and implement "secure mode".
When set to false, no limitation is placed on the pager. Setting
SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
environment may allow the user to invoke arbitrary commands.
When $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, systemd tools attempt to
automatically figure out if "secure mode" should be enabled and
whether the pager supports it. "Secure mode" is enabled if the
effective UID is not the same as the owner of the login session, see
geteuid(2) and sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3), or when running under
sudo(8) or similar tools ($SUDO_UID is set [2]). In those
cases, SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=1 will be set and pagers which are not
known to implement "secure mode" will not be used at all. Note
that this autodetection only covers the most common mechanisms to elevate
privileges and is intended as convenience. It is recommended to explicitly
set $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE or disable the pager.
Note that if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be
honoured, other than to disable the pager, $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must
be set too.
.RE
.PP $SYSTEMD_COLORS
Takes a boolean argument, or a special value. By default (unset),
systemd and related utilities will use colors in their output if
possible. If $COLORTERM is set to truecolor or 24bit, 24-bit colors
will be enabled, 256 colors otherwise, unless $NO_COLOR or
$TERM indicates colors are disabled.
.PP true
Same as unset, except that $NO_COLOR is ignored.
.RE
.PP false
The output will be monochrome.
.RE
.PP 16, 256, 24bit
Always use the base 16 ANSI colors, 256 colors, or 24 bit color,
respectively.
.RE
.PP auto-16, auto-256, auto-24bit
Use the given quantity of colours, subject to $TERM, and what the
console is connected to.
.RE
.sp
.RE
.PP $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.
.RE
.SH "UNPRIVILEGED --CLEANUP OPERATION"
.PP 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.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.PP 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).
.PP 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.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)
NOTES
- 1.
- UAPI.2 Discoverable Partitions Specification
- 2.
-
It is recommended for other tools to set and check $SUDO_UID as appropriate, treating it is a common interface.
| systemd 262.2 |