SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) systemd-tmpfiles SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
NAME
systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
clean.timer - Creates, deletes and cleans up volatile and temporary
files and directories
SYNOPSIS
systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
System units:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
User units:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
DESCRIPTION
systemd-tmpfiles creates, deletes, and cleans up volatile and temporary
files and directories, using the configuration file format and location
specified in tmpfiles.d(5). It must be invoked with one or more options
--create, --remove, and --clean, to select the respective subset of
operations.
By default, directives from all configuration files are applied. When
invoked with --replace=PATH, arguments specified on the command line
are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise, if one or
more absolute filenames are passed on the command line, only the
directives in these files are applied. If "-" is specified instead of a
filename, directives are read from standard input. If only the basename
of a configuration file is specified, all configuration directories as
specified in tmpfiles.d(5) are searched for a matching file and the
file found that has the highest priority is executed.
System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service,
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service)
invoke systemd-tmpfiles to create system files and to perform system
wide cleanup. Those services read administrator-controlled
configuration files in tmpfiles.d/ directories. User services
(systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service) also
invoke systemd-tmpfiles, but it reads a separate set of files, which
includes user-controlled files under ~/.config/user-tmpfiles.d/ and
~/.local/share/user-tmpfiles.d/, and administrator-controlled files
under /usr/share/user-tmpfiles.d/. Users may use this to create and
clean up files under their control, but the system instance performs
global cleanup and is not influenced by user configuration. Note that
this means a time-based cleanup configured in the system instance, such
as the one typically configured for /tmp/, will thus also affect files
created by the user instance if they are placed in /tmp/, even if the
user instance's time-based cleanup is turned off.
To re-apply settings after configuration has been modified, simply
restart systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, which will apply any settings
which can be safely executed at runtime. To debug systemd-tmpfiles, it
may be useful to invoke it directly from the command line with
increased log level (see $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL below).
OPTIONS
The following options are understood:
--create
If this option is passed, all files and directories marked with f,
F, w, d, D, v, p, L, c, b, m in the configuration files are created
or written to. Files and directories marked with z, Z, t, T, a, and
A have their ownership, access mode and security labels set.
--clean
If this option is passed, all files and directories with an age
parameter configured will be cleaned up.
--remove
If this option is passed, the contents of directories marked with D
or R, and files or directories themselves marked with r or R are
removed.
--user
Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d files in user
configuration directories.
--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.
--prefix=path
Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix.
This option can be specified multiple times.
--exclude-prefix=path
Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This
option can be specified multiple times.
-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.
--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.
--image=image
Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
specified all operations are applied to file system in the
indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but operates on
file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The disk image
should either contain just a file system or a set of file systems
within a GPT partition table, following the Discoverable Partitions
Specification[1]. For further information on supported disk images,
see systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.
Implies -E.
--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.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each
file, the filename is printed as a comment.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
It is possible to combine --create, --clean, and --remove in one
invocation (in which case removal and cleanup are executed before
creation of new files). For example, during boot the following command
line is executed to ensure that all temporary and volatile directories
are removed and created according to the configuration file:
systemd-tmpfiles --remove --create
CREDENTIALS
systemd-tmpfiles supports the service credentials logic as implemented
by LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see systemd.exec(1) for details).
The following credentials are used when passed in:
"tmpfiles.extra"
The contents of this credential may contain additional lines to
operate on. The credential contents should follow the same format
as any other tmpfiles.d/ drop-in configuration file. If this
credential is passed it is processed after all of the drop-in files
read from the file system. The lines in the credential can hence
augment existing lines of the OS, but not override them.
Note that by default the systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service unit file (and
related unit files) is set up to inherit the "tmpfiles.extra"
credential from the service manager.
ENVIRONMENT
$SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher
log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). 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.
$SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored
according to priority.
This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display
logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.
$SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a
timestamp.
This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that
display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on
their own.
$SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and
line number in the source code where the message originates.
Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal
entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.
$SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with
prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg
(log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log to the
journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to
kmsg otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target
automatically, the default), null (disable log output).
$SYSTEMD_PAGER
Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If
neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known
pager implementations are tried in turn, including less(1) and
more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable
to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing
--no-pager.
Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER (as well
as $PAGER) will be silently ignored.
$SYSTEMD_LESS
Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").
Users might want to change two options in particular:
K
This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C
is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch
back to the pager command prompt, unset this option.
If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the
pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the
executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.
X
This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It
is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in
the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this
prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular
paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse.
Note that setting the regular $LESS environment variable has no
effect for less invocations by systemd tools.
See less(1) for more discussion.
$SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the
invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).
Note that setting the regular $LESSCHARSET environment variable has
no effect for less invocations by systemd tools.
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager
is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective UID is not the same
as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and
sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set
when invoking the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that
open or create new files or start new subprocesses. When
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not known
to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1)
implements secure mode.)
Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure
that unintended interactive features are not enabled. "Secure" mode
for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
environment allows the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that
if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured,
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be reasonable to
completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.
$SYSTEMD_COLORS
Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities
will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be
monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the
following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors
to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be
specified to override the automatic decision based on $TERM and
what the console is connected to.
$SYSTEMD_URLIFY
The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting
this. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd
makes based on $TERM and other conditions.
UNPRIVILEGED --CLEANUP OPERATION
systemd-tmpfiles tries to avoid changing the access and modification
times on the directories it accesses, which requires CAP_FOWNER
privileges. When running as non-root, directories which are checked for
files to clean up will have their access time bumped, which might
prevent their cleanup.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned. If the configuration was syntactically
invalid (syntax errors, missing arguments, ...), so some lines had to
be ignored, but no other errors occurred, 65 is returned (EX_DATAERR
from /usr/include/sysexits.h). If the configuration was syntactically
valid, but could not be executed (lack of permissions, creation of
files in missing directories, invalid contents when writing to /sys/
values, ...), 73 is returned (EX_CANTCREAT from
/usr/include/sysexits.h). Otherwise, 1 is returned (EXIT_FAILURE from
/usr/include/stdlib.h).
Note: when creating items, if the target already exists, but is of the
wrong type or otherwise does not match the requested state, and forced
operation has not been requested with "+", a message is emitted, but
the failure is otherwise ignored.
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)
NOTES
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://systemd.io/DISCOVERABLE_PARTITIONS
systemd 252 SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
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