1MACHINECTL(1) machinectl MACHINECTL(1)
2
3
4
6 machinectl - Control the systemd machine manager
7
9 machinectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [NAME...]
10
12 machinectl may be used to introspect and control the state of the
13 systemd(1) virtual machine and container registration manager systemd-
14 machined.service(8).
15
16 machinectl may be used to execute operations on machines and images.
17 Machines in this sense are considered running instances of:
18
19 • Virtual Machines (VMs) that virtualize hardware to run full
20 operating system (OS) instances (including their kernels) in a
21 virtualized environment on top of the host OS.
22
23 • Containers that share the hardware and OS kernel with the host OS,
24 in order to run OS userspace instances on top the host OS.
25
26 • The host system itself.
27
28 Machines are identified by names that follow the same rules as UNIX and
29 DNS hostnames. For details, see below.
30
31 Machines are instantiated from disk or file system images that
32 frequently — but not necessarily — carry the same name as machines
33 running from them. Images in this sense may be:
34
35 • Directory trees containing an OS, including the top-level
36 directories /usr/, /etc/, and so on.
37
38 • btrfs subvolumes containing OS trees, similar to regular directory
39 trees.
40
41 • Binary "raw" disk image files containing MBR or GPT partition
42 tables and Linux file systems.
43
44 • Similarly, block devices containing MBR or GPT partition tables and
45 file systems.
46
47 • The file system tree of the host OS itself.
48
50 The following commands are understood:
51
52 Machine Commands
53 list
54 List currently running (online) virtual machines and containers. To
55 enumerate machine images that can be started, use list-images (see
56 below). Note that this command hides the special ".host" machine by
57 default. Use the --all switch to show it.
58
59 status NAME...
60 Show runtime status information about one or more virtual machines
61 and containers, followed by the most recent log data from the
62 journal. This function is intended to generate human-readable
63 output. If you are looking for computer-parsable output, use show
64 instead. Note that the log data shown is reported by the virtual
65 machine or container manager, and frequently contains console
66 output of the machine, but not necessarily journal contents of the
67 machine itself.
68
69 show [NAME...]
70 Show properties of one or more registered virtual machines or
71 containers or the manager itself. If no argument is specified,
72 properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME is specified,
73 properties of this virtual machine or container are shown. By
74 default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those
75 too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=. This
76 command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is
77 required, and does not print the control group tree or journal
78 entries. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable
79 output.
80
81 start NAME...
82 Start a container as a system service, using systemd-nspawn(1).
83 This starts systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified
84 machine name, similar to the effect of systemctl start on the
85 service name. systemd-nspawn looks for a container image by the
86 specified name in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see
87 below) and runs it. Use list-images (see below) for listing
88 available container images to start.
89
90 Note that systemd-machined.service(8) also interfaces with a
91 variety of other container and VM managers, systemd-nspawn is just
92 one implementation of it. Most of the commands available in
93 machinectl may be used on containers or VMs controlled by other
94 managers, not just systemd-nspawn. Starting VMs and container
95 images on those managers requires manager-specific tools.
96
97 To interactively start a container on the command line with full
98 access to the container's console, please invoke systemd-nspawn
99 directly. To stop a running container use machinectl poweroff.
100
101 login [NAME]
102 Open an interactive terminal login session in a container or on the
103 local host. If an argument is supplied, it refers to the container
104 machine to connect to. If none is specified, or the container name
105 is specified as the empty string, or the special machine name
106 ".host" (see below) is specified, the connection is made to the
107 local host instead. This will create a TTY connection to a specific
108 container or the local host and asks for the execution of a getty
109 on it. Note that this is only supported for containers running
110 systemd(1) as init system.
111
112 This command will open a full login prompt on the container or the
113 local host, which then asks for username and password. Use shell
114 (see below) or systemd-run(1) with the --machine= switch to
115 directly invoke a single command, either interactively or in the
116 background.
117
118 shell [[NAME@]NAME [PATH [ARGUMENTS...]]]
119 Open an interactive shell session in a container or on the local
120 host. The first argument refers to the container machine to connect
121 to. If none is specified, or the machine name is specified as the
122 empty string, or the special machine name ".host" (see below) is
123 specified, the connection is made to the local host instead. This
124 works similar to login but immediately invokes a user process. This
125 command runs the specified executable with the specified arguments,
126 or the default shell for the user if none is specified, or /bin/sh
127 if no default shell is found. By default, --uid=, or by prefixing
128 the machine name with a username and an "@" character, a different
129 user may be selected. Use --setenv= to set environment variables
130 for the executed process.
131
132 Note that machinectl shell does not propagate the exit code/status
133 of the invoked shell process. Use systemd-run instead if that
134 information is required (see below).
135
136 When using the shell command without arguments, (thus invoking the
137 executed shell or command on the local host), it is in many ways
138 similar to a su(1) session, but, unlike su, completely isolates the
139 new session from the originating session, so that it shares no
140 process or session properties, and is in a clean and well-defined
141 state. It will be tracked in a new utmp, login, audit, security and
142 keyring session, and will not inherit any environment variables or
143 resource limits, among other properties.
144
145 Note that systemd-run(1) with its --machine= switch may be used in
146 place of the machinectl shell command, and allows non-interactive
147 operation, more detailed and low-level configuration of the invoked
148 unit, as well as access to runtime and exit code/status information
149 of the invoked shell process. In particular, use systemd-run's
150 --wait switch to propagate exit status information of the invoked
151 process. Use systemd-run's --pty switch for acquiring an
152 interactive shell, similar to machinectl shell. In general,
153 systemd-run is preferable for scripting purposes. However, note
154 that systemd-run might require higher privileges than machinectl
155 shell.
156
157 enable NAME..., disable NAME...
158 Enable or disable a container as a system service to start at
159 system boot, using systemd-nspawn(1). This enables or disables
160 systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified machine
161 name, similar to the effect of systemctl enable or systemctl
162 disable on the service name.
163
164 poweroff NAME...
165 Power off one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by
166 sending SIGRTMIN+4 to the container's init process, which causes
167 systemd-compatible init systems to shut down cleanly. Use stop as
168 alias for poweroff. This operation does not work on containers that
169 do not run a systemd(1)-compatible init system, such as sysvinit.
170 Use terminate (see below) to immediately terminate a container or
171 VM, without cleanly shutting it down.
172
173 reboot NAME...
174 Reboot one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by
175 sending SIGINT to the container's init process, which is roughly
176 equivalent to pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a non-containerized system,
177 and is compatible with containers running any system manager.
178
179 terminate NAME...
180 Immediately terminates a virtual machine or container, without
181 cleanly shutting it down. This kills all processes of the virtual
182 machine or container and deallocates all resources attached to that
183 instance. Use poweroff to issue a clean shutdown request.
184
185 kill NAME...
186 Send a signal to one or more processes of the virtual machine or
187 container. This means processes as seen by the host, not the
188 processes inside the virtual machine or container. Use --kill-who=
189 to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to select the signal
190 to send.
191
192 bind NAME PATH [PATH]
193 Bind mounts a file or directory from the host into the specified
194 container. The first path argument is the source file or directory
195 on the host, the second path argument is the destination file or
196 directory in the container. When the latter is omitted, the
197 destination path in the container is the same as the source path on
198 the host. When combined with the --read-only switch, a ready-only
199 bind mount is created. When combined with the --mkdir switch, the
200 destination path is first created before the mount is applied. Note
201 that this option is currently only supported for systemd-nspawn(1)
202 containers, and only if user namespacing (--private-users) is not
203 used. This command supports bind mounting directories, regular
204 files, device nodes, AF_UNIX socket nodes, as well as FIFOs.
205
206 copy-to NAME PATH [PATH]
207 Copies files or directories from the host system into a running
208 container. Takes a container name, followed by the source path on
209 the host and the destination path in the container. If the
210 destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is used.
211
212 If host and container share the same user and group namespace, file
213 ownership by numeric user ID and group ID is preserved for the
214 copy, otherwise all files and directories in the copy will be owned
215 by the root user and group (UID/GID 0).
216
217 copy-from NAME PATH [PATH]
218 Copies files or directories from a container into the host system.
219 Takes a container name, followed by the source path in the
220 container and the destination path on the host. If the destination
221 path is omitted, the same as the source path is used.
222
223 If host and container share the same user and group namespace, file
224 ownership by numeric user ID and group ID is preserved for the
225 copy, otherwise all files and directories in the copy will be owned
226 by the root user and group (UID/GID 0).
227
228 Image Commands
229 list-images
230 Show a list of locally installed container and VM images. This
231 enumerates all raw disk images and container directories and
232 subvolumes in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see
233 below). Use start (see above) to run a container off one of the
234 listed images. Note that, by default, containers whose name begins
235 with a dot (".") are not shown. To show these too, specify --all.
236 Note that a special image ".host" always implicitly exists and
237 refers to the image the host itself is booted from.
238
239 image-status [NAME...]
240 Show terse status information about one or more container or VM
241 images. This function is intended to generate human-readable
242 output. Use show-image (see below) to generate computer-parsable
243 output instead.
244
245 show-image [NAME...]
246 Show properties of one or more registered virtual machine or
247 container images, or the manager itself. If no argument is
248 specified, properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME is
249 specified, properties of this virtual machine or container image
250 are shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all
251 to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use
252 --property=. This command is intended to be used whenever
253 computer-parsable output is required. Use image-status if you are
254 looking for formatted human-readable output.
255
256 clone NAME NAME
257 Clones a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of
258 the image to clone and the name of the newly cloned image. Note
259 that plain directory container images are cloned into btrfs
260 subvolume images with this command, if the underlying file system
261 supports this. Note that cloning a container or VM image is
262 optimized for file systems that support copy-on-write, and might
263 not be efficient on others, due to file system limitations.
264
265 Note that this command leaves hostname, machine ID and all other
266 settings that could identify the instance unmodified. The original
267 image and the cloned copy will hence share these credentials, and
268 it might be necessary to manually change them in the copy.
269
270 If combined with the --read-only switch a read-only cloned image is
271 created.
272
273 rename NAME NAME
274 Renames a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of
275 the image to rename and the new name of the image.
276
277 read-only NAME [BOOL]
278 Marks or (unmarks) a container or VM image read-only. Takes a VM or
279 container image name, followed by a boolean as arguments. If the
280 boolean is omitted, positive is implied, i.e. the image is marked
281 read-only.
282
283 remove NAME...
284 Removes one or more container or VM images. The special image
285 ".host", which refers to the host's own directory tree, may not be
286 removed.
287
288 set-limit [NAME] BYTES
289 Sets the maximum size in bytes that a specific container or VM
290 image, or all images, may grow up to on disk (disk quota). Takes
291 either one or two parameters. The first, optional parameter refers
292 to a container or VM image name. If specified, the size limit of
293 the specified image is changed. If omitted, the overall size limit
294 of the sum of all images stored locally is changed. The final
295 argument specifies the size limit in bytes, possibly suffixed by
296 the usual K, M, G, T units. If the size limit shall be disabled,
297 specify "-" as size.
298
299 Note that per-container size limits are only supported on btrfs
300 file systems.
301
302 clean
303 Remove hidden VM or container images (or all). This command removes
304 all hidden machine images from /var/lib/machines/, i.e. those whose
305 name begins with a dot. Use machinectl list-images --all to see a
306 list of all machine images, including the hidden ones.
307
308 When combined with the --all switch removes all images, not just
309 hidden ones. This command effectively empties /var/lib/machines/.
310
311 Note that commands such as machinectl pull-tar or machinectl
312 pull-raw usually create hidden, read-only, unmodified machine
313 images from the downloaded image first, before cloning a writable
314 working copy of it, in order to avoid duplicate downloads in case
315 of images that are reused multiple times. Use machinectl clean to
316 remove old, hidden images created this way.
317
318 Image Transfer Commands
319 pull-tar URL [NAME]
320 Downloads a .tar container image from the specified URL, and makes
321 it available under the specified local machine name. The URL must
322 be of type "http://" or "https://", and must refer to a .tar,
323 .tar.gz, .tar.xz or .tar.bz2 archive file. If the local machine
324 name is omitted, it is automatically derived from the last
325 component of the URL, with its suffix removed.
326
327 The image is verified before it is made available, unless
328 --verify=no is specified. Verification is done either via an inline
329 signed file with the name of the image and the suffix .sha256 or
330 via separate SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.gpg files. The signature
331 files need to be made available on the same web server, under the
332 same URL as the .tar file. With --verify=checksum, only the SHA256
333 checksum for the file is verified, based on the .sha256 suffixed
334 file or the SHA256SUMS file. With --verify=signature, the sha
335 checksum file is first verified with the inline signature in the
336 .sha256 file or the detached GPG signature file SHA256SUMS.gpg. The
337 public key for this verification step needs to be available in
338 /usr/lib/systemd/import-pubring.gpg or
339 /etc/systemd/import-pubring.gpg.
340
341 The container image will be downloaded and stored in a read-only
342 subvolume in /var/lib/machines/ that is named after the specified
343 URL and its HTTP etag. A writable snapshot is then taken from this
344 subvolume, and named after the specified local name. This behavior
345 ensures that creating multiple container instances of the same URL
346 is efficient, as multiple downloads are not necessary. In order to
347 create only the read-only image, and avoid creating its writable
348 snapshot, specify "-" as local machine name.
349
350 Note that the read-only subvolume is prefixed with .tar-, and is
351 thus not shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.
352
353 Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not
354 abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.
355
356 pull-raw URL [NAME]
357 Downloads a .raw container or VM disk image from the specified URL,
358 and makes it available under the specified local machine name. The
359 URL must be of type "http://" or "https://". The container image
360 must either be a .qcow2 or raw disk image, optionally compressed as
361 .gz, .xz, or .bz2. If the local machine name is omitted, it is
362 automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with its
363 suffix removed.
364
365 Image verification is identical for raw and tar images (see above).
366
367 If the downloaded image is in .qcow2 format it is converted into a
368 raw image file before it is made available.
369
370 Downloaded images of this type will be placed as read-only .raw
371 file in /var/lib/machines/. A local, writable (reflinked) copy is
372 then made under the specified local machine name. To omit creation
373 of the local, writable copy pass "-" as local machine name.
374
375 Similar to the behavior of pull-tar, the read-only image is
376 prefixed with .raw-, and thus not shown by list-images, unless
377 --all is passed.
378
379 Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not
380 abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.
381
382 import-tar FILE [NAME], import-raw FILE [NAME]
383 Imports a TAR or RAW container or VM image, and places it under the
384 specified name in /var/lib/machines/. When import-tar is used, the
385 file specified as the first argument should be a tar archive,
386 possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2. It will then be
387 unpacked into its own subvolume in /var/lib/machines/. When
388 import-raw is used, the file should be a qcow2 or raw disk image,
389 possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2. If the second argument
390 (the resulting image name) is not specified, it is automatically
391 derived from the file name. If the filename is passed as "-", the
392 image is read from standard input, in which case the second
393 argument is mandatory.
394
395 Optionally, the --read-only switch may be used to create a
396 read-only container or VM image. No cryptographic validation is
397 done when importing the images.
398
399 Much like image downloads, ongoing imports may be listed with
400 list-transfers and aborted with cancel-transfer.
401
402 import-fs DIRECTORY [NAME]
403 Imports a container image stored in a local directory into
404 /var/lib/machines/, operates similar to import-tar or import-raw,
405 but the first argument is the source directory. If supported, this
406 command will create btrfs snapshot or subvolume for the new image.
407
408 export-tar NAME [FILE], export-raw NAME [FILE]
409 Exports a TAR or RAW container or VM image and stores it in the
410 specified file. The first parameter should be a VM or container
411 image name. The second parameter should be a file path the TAR or
412 RAW image is written to. If the path ends in ".gz", the file is
413 compressed with gzip, if it ends in ".xz", with xz, and if it ends
414 in ".bz2", with bzip2. If the path ends in neither, the file is
415 left uncompressed. If the second argument is missing, the image is
416 written to standard output. The compression may also be explicitly
417 selected with the --format= switch. This is in particular useful if
418 the second parameter is left unspecified.
419
420 Much like image downloads and imports, ongoing exports may be
421 listed with list-transfers and aborted with cancel-transfer.
422
423 Note that, currently, only directory and subvolume images may be
424 exported as TAR images, and only raw disk images as RAW images.
425
426 list-transfers
427 Shows a list of container or VM image downloads, imports and
428 exports that are currently in progress.
429
430 cancel-transfer ID...
431 Aborts a download, import or export of the container or VM image
432 with the specified ID. To list ongoing transfers and their IDs, use
433 list-transfers.
434
436 The following options are understood:
437
438 -p, --property=
439 When showing machine or image properties, limit the output to
440 certain properties as specified by the argument. If not specified,
441 all set properties are shown. The argument should be a property
442 name, such as "Name". If specified more than once, all properties
443 with the specified names are shown.
444
445 -a, --all
446 When showing machine or image properties, show all properties
447 regardless of whether they are set or not.
448
449 When listing VM or container images, do not suppress images
450 beginning in a dot character (".").
451
452 When cleaning VM or container images, remove all images, not just
453 hidden ones.
454
455 --value
456 When printing properties with show, only print the value, and skip
457 the property name and "=".
458
459 -l, --full
460 Do not ellipsize process tree entries or table. This implies
461 --max-addresses=full.
462
463 --kill-who=
464 When used with kill, choose which processes to kill. Must be one of
465 leader, or all to select whether to kill only the leader process of
466 the machine or all processes of the machine. If omitted, defaults
467 to all.
468
469 -s, --signal=
470 When used with kill, choose which signal to send to selected
471 processes. Must be one of the well-known signal specifiers such as
472 SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGSTOP. If omitted, defaults to SIGTERM.
473
474 The special value "help" will list the known values and the program
475 will exit immediately, and the special value "list" will list known
476 values along with the numerical signal numbers and the program will
477 exit immediately.
478
479 --uid=
480 When used with the shell command, chooses the user ID to open the
481 interactive shell session as. If the argument to the shell command
482 also specifies a user name, this option is ignored. If the name is
483 not specified in either way, "root" will be used by default. Note
484 that this switch is not supported for the login command (see
485 below).
486
487 -E NAME=VALUE, --setenv=NAME=VALUE
488 When used with the shell command, sets an environment variable to
489 pass to the executed shell. Takes an environment variable name and
490 value, separated by "=". This switch may be used multiple times to
491 set multiple environment variables. Note that this switch is not
492 supported for the login command (see below).
493
494 --mkdir
495 When used with bind, creates the destination file or directory
496 before applying the bind mount. Note that even though the name of
497 this option suggests that it is suitable only for directories, this
498 option also creates the destination file node to mount over if the
499 object to mount is not a directory, but a regular file, device
500 node, socket or FIFO.
501
502 --read-only
503 When used with bind, creates a read-only bind mount.
504
505 When used with clone, import-raw or import-tar a read-only
506 container or VM image is created.
507
508 -n, --lines=
509 When used with status, controls the number of journal lines to
510 show, counting from the most recent ones. Takes a positive integer
511 argument. Defaults to 10.
512
513 -o, --output=
514 When used with status, controls the formatting of the journal
515 entries that are shown. For the available choices, see
516 journalctl(1). Defaults to "short".
517
518 --verify=
519 When downloading a container or VM image, specify whether the image
520 shall be verified before it is made available. Takes one of "no",
521 "checksum" and "signature". If "no", no verification is done. If
522 "checksum" is specified, the download is checked for integrity
523 after the transfer is complete, but no signatures are verified. If
524 "signature" is specified, the checksum is verified and the image's
525 signature is checked against a local keyring of trustable vendors.
526 It is strongly recommended to set this option to "signature" if the
527 server and protocol support this. Defaults to "signature".
528
529 --force
530 When downloading a container or VM image, and a local copy by the
531 specified local machine name already exists, delete it first and
532 replace it by the newly downloaded image.
533
534 --format=
535 When used with the export-tar or export-raw commands, specifies the
536 compression format to use for the resulting file. Takes one of
537 "uncompressed", "xz", "gzip", "bzip2". By default, the format is
538 determined automatically from the image file name passed.
539
540 --max-addresses=
541 When used with the list-machines command, limits the number of ip
542 addresses output for every machine. Defaults to 1. All addresses
543 can be requested with "all" as argument to --max-addresses=. If the
544 argument to --max-addresses= is less than the actual number of
545 addresses, "..."follows the last address.
546
547 -q, --quiet
548 Suppresses additional informational output while running.
549
550 -H, --host=
551 Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username
552 and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may
553 optionally be suffixed by a port ssh is listening on, separated by
554 ":", and then a container name, separated by "/", which connects
555 directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will
556 use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container
557 names may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST. Put IPv6 addresses
558 in brackets.
559
560 -M, --machine=
561 Connect to systemd-machined.service(8) running in a local
562 container, to perform the specified operation within the container.
563
564 --no-pager
565 Do not pipe output into a pager.
566
567 --no-legend
568 Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer with
569 hints.
570
571 --no-ask-password
572 Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
573
574 -h, --help
575 Print a short help text and exit.
576
577 --version
578 Print a short version string and exit.
579
581 The machinectl tool operates on machines and images whose names must be
582 chosen following strict rules. Machine names must be suitable for use
583 as hostnames following a conservative subset of DNS and UNIX/Linux
584 semantics. Specifically, they must consist of one or more non-empty
585 label strings, separated by dots. No leading or trailing dots are
586 allowed. No sequences of multiple dots are allowed. The label strings
587 may only consist of alphanumeric characters as well as the dash and
588 underscore. The maximum length of a machine name is 64 characters.
589
590 A special machine with the name ".host" refers to the running host
591 system itself. This is useful for execution operations or inspecting
592 the host system as well. Note that machinectl list will not show this
593 special machine unless the --all switch is specified.
594
595 Requirements on image names are less strict, however, they must be
596 valid UTF-8, must be suitable as file names (hence not be the single or
597 double dot, and not include a slash), and may not contain control
598 characters. Since many operations search for an image by the name of a
599 requested machine, it is recommended to name images in the same strict
600 fashion as machines.
601
602 A special image with the name ".host" refers to the image of the
603 running host system. It hence conceptually maps to the special ".host"
604 machine name described above. Note that machinectl list-images will not
605 show this special image either, unless --all is specified.
606
608 Machine images are preferably stored in /var/lib/machines/, but are
609 also searched for in /usr/local/lib/machines/ and /usr/lib/machines/.
610 For compatibility reasons, the directory /var/lib/container/ is
611 searched, too. Note that images stored below /usr/ are always
612 considered read-only. It is possible to symlink machines images from
613 other directories into /var/lib/machines/ to make them available for
614 control with machinectl.
615
616 Note that some image operations are only supported, efficient or atomic
617 on btrfs file systems.
618
619 Disk images are understood by systemd-nspawn(1) and machinectl in three
620 formats:
621
622 • A simple directory tree, containing the files and directories of
623 the container to boot.
624
625 • Subvolumes (on btrfs file systems), which are similar to the simple
626 directories, described above. However, they have additional
627 benefits, such as efficient cloning and quota reporting.
628
629 • "Raw" disk images, i.e. binary images of disks with a GPT or MBR
630 partition table. Images of this type are regular files with the
631 suffix ".raw".
632
633 See systemd-nspawn(1) for more information on image formats, in
634 particular its --directory= and --image= options.
635
637 Example 1. Download an Ubuntu image and open a shell in it
638
639 # machinectl pull-tar https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/trusty/current/trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-root.tar.gz
640 # systemd-nspawn -M trusty-server-cloudimg-amd64-root
641
642 This downloads and verifies the specified .tar image, and then uses
643 systemd-nspawn(1) to open a shell in it.
644
645 Example 2. Download a Fedora image, set a root password in it, start it
646 as a service
647
648 # machinectl pull-raw --verify=no \
649 https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/33/Cloud/x86_64/images/Fedora-Cloud-Base-33-1.2.x86_64.raw.xz \
650 Fedora-Cloud-Base-33-1.2.x86-64
651 # systemd-nspawn -M Fedora-Cloud-Base-33-1.2.x86-64
652 # passwd
653 # exit
654 # machinectl start Fedora-Cloud-Base-33-1.2.x86-64
655 # machinectl login Fedora-Cloud-Base-33-1.2.x86-64
656
657 This downloads the specified .raw image with verification disabled.
658 Then, a shell is opened in it and a root password is set. Afterwards
659 the shell is left, and the machine started as system service. With the
660 last command a login prompt into the container is requested.
661
662 Example 3. Exports a container image as tar file
663
664 # machinectl export-tar fedora myfedora.tar.xz
665
666 Exports the container "fedora" as an xz-compressed tar file
667 myfedora.tar.xz into the current directory.
668
669 Example 4. Create a new shell session
670
671 # machinectl shell --uid=lennart
672
673 This creates a new shell session on the local host for the user ID
674 "lennart", in a su(1)-like fashion.
675
677 On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
678
680 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
681 The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher
682 log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). Either
683 one of (in order of decreasing importance) emerg, alert, crit, err,
684 warning, notice, info, debug, or an integer in the range 0...7. See
685 syslog(3) for more information.
686
687 $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
688 A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored
689 according to priority.
690
691 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
692 the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display
693 logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.
694
695 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
696 A boolean. If true, log messages will be prefixed with a timestamp.
697
698 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
699 the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that
700 display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on
701 their own.
702
703 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
704 A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and
705 line number in the source code where the message originates.
706
707 Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal
708 entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
709 nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.
710
711 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TID
712 A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with the current
713 numerical thread ID (TID).
714
715 Note that the this information is attached as metadata to journal
716 entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
717 nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.
718
719 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
720 The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
721 attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with
722 prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg
723 (log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log to the
724 journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to
725 kmsg otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target
726 automatically, the default), null (disable log output).
727
728 $SYSTEMD_PAGER
729 Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If
730 neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known
731 pager implementations are tried in turn, including less(1) and
732 more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
733 discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable
734 to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing
735 --no-pager.
736
737 $SYSTEMD_LESS
738 Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").
739
740 Users might want to change two options in particular:
741
742 K
743 This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C
744 is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch
745 back to the pager command prompt, unset this option.
746
747 If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the
748 pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the
749 executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.
750
751 X
752 This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
753 initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It
754 is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in
755 the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this
756 prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular
757 paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse.
758
759 See less(1) for more discussion.
760
761 $SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
762 Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the
763 invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).
764
765 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
766 Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager
767 is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
768 at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective UID is not the same
769 as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and
770 sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set
771 when invoking the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that
772 open or create new files or start new subprocesses. When
773 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not known
774 to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1)
775 implements secure mode.)
776
777 Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
778 example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure
779 that unintended interactive features are not enabled. "Secure" mode
780 for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
781 Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
782 environment allows the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that
783 if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured,
784 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be reasonable to
785 completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.
786
787 $SYSTEMD_COLORS
788 Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities
789 will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be
790 monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the
791 following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors
792 to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be
793 specified to override the automatic decision based on $TERM and
794 what the console is connected to.
795
796 $SYSTEMD_URLIFY
797 The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
798 should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting
799 this. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd
800 makes based on $TERM and other conditions.
801
803 systemd(1), systemd-machined.service(8), systemd-nspawn(1),
804 systemd.special(7), tar(1), xz(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1)
805
806
807
808systemd 248 MACHINECTL(1)