1SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) systemd-tmpfiles SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
2
6 systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
7 setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
8 clean.timer - Creates, deletes and cleans up volatile and temporary
9 files and directories
10
12 systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
13 System units:
15 systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
17 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
18 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
19 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
20 User units:
22 systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
24 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
25 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
26
28 systemd-tmpfiles creates, deletes, and cleans up volatile and temporary
29 files and directories, using the configuration file format and location
30 specified in tmpfiles.d(5). It must be invoked with one or more options
31 --create, --remove, and --clean, to select the respective subset of
32 operations.
33 By default, directives from all configuration files are applied. When
35 invoked with --replace=PATH, arguments specified on the command line
36 are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise, if one or
37 more absolute filenames are passed on the command line, only the
38 directives in these files are applied. If "-" is specified instead of a
39 filename, directives are read from standard input. If only the basename
40 of a configuration file is specified, all configuration directories as
41 specified in tmpfiles.d(5) are searched for a matching file and the
42 file found that has the highest priority is executed.
43 System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service,
45 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service)
46 invoke systemd-tmpfiles to create system files and to perform system
47 wide cleanup. Those services read administrator-controlled
48 configuration files in tmpfiles.d/ directories. User services
49 (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service) also
50 invoke systemd-tmpfiles, but it reads a separate set of files, which
51 includes user-controlled files under ~/.config/user-tmpfiles.d/ and
52 ~/.local/share/user-tmpfiles.d/, and administrator-controlled files
53 under /usr/share/user-tmpfiles.d/. Users may use this to create and
54 clean up files under their control, but the system instance performs
55 global cleanup and is not influenced by user configuration. Note that
56 this means a time-based cleanup configured in the system instance, such
57 as the one typically configured for /tmp/, will thus also affect files
58 created by the user instance if they are placed in /tmp/, even if the
59 user instance's time-based cleanup is turned off.
60 To re-apply settings after configuration has been modified, simply
62 restart systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, which will apply any settings
63 which can be safely executed at runtime. To debug systemd-tmpfiles, it
64 may be useful to invoke it directly from the command line with
65 increased log level (see $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL below).
66
68 The following options are understood:
69 --create
71 If this option is passed, all files and directories marked with f,
72 F, w, d, D, v, p, L, c, b, m in the configuration files are created
73 or written to. Files and directories marked with z, Z, t, T, a, and
74 A have their ownership, access mode and security labels set.
75 --clean
77 If this option is passed, all files and directories with an age
78 parameter configured will be cleaned up.
79 --remove
81 If this option is passed, the contents of directories marked with D
82 or R, and files or directories themselves marked with r or R are
83 removed.
84 --user
86 Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d files in user
87 configuration directories.
88 --boot
90 Also execute lines with an exclamation mark.
91 --prefix=path
93 Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix.
94 This option can be specified multiple times.
95 --exclude-prefix=path
97 Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This
98 option can be specified multiple times.
99 -E
101 A shortcut for "--exclude-prefix=/dev --exclude-prefix=/proc
102 --exclude-prefix=/run --exclude-prefix=/sys", i.e. exclude the
103 hierarchies typically backed by virtual or memory file systems.
104 This is useful in combination with --root=, if the specified
105 directory tree contains an OS tree without these virtual/memory
106 file systems mounted in, as it is typically not desirable to create
107 any files and directories below these subdirectories if they are
108 supposed to be overmounted during runtime.
109 --root=root
111 Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed
112 with the given alternate root path, including config search paths.
113 When this option is used, the libc Name Service Switch (NSS) is
115 bypassed for resolving users and groups. Instead the files
116 /etc/passwd and /etc/group inside the alternate root are read
117 directly. This means that users/groups not listed in these files
118 will not be resolved, i.e. LDAP NIS and other complex databases are
119 not considered.
120 Consider combining this with -E to ensure the invocation does not
122 create files or directories below mount points in the OS image
123 operated on that are typically overmounted during runtime.
124 --image=image
126 Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
127 specified all operations are applied to file system in the
128 indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but operates on
129 file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The disk image
130 should either contain just a file system or a set of file systems
131 within a GPT partition table, following the Discoverable Partitions
132 Specification[1]. For further information on supported disk images,
133 see systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.
134 Implies -E.
136 --replace=PATH
138 When this option is given, one or more positional arguments must be
139 specified. All configuration files found in the directories listed
140 in tmpfiles.d(5) will be read, and the configuration given on the
141 command line will be handled instead of and with the same priority
142 as the configuration file PATH.
143 This option is intended to be used when package installation
145 scripts are running and files belonging to that package are not yet
146 available on disk, so their contents must be given on the command
147 line, but the admin configuration might already exist and should be
148 given higher priority.
149 --cat-config
151 Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each
152 file, the filename is printed as a comment.
153 --no-pager
155 Do not pipe output into a pager.
156 -h, --help
158 Print a short help text and exit.
159 --version
161 Print a short version string and exit.
162 It is possible to combine --create, --clean, and --remove in one
164 invocation (in which case removal and cleanup are executed before
165 creation of new files). For example, during boot the following command
166 line is executed to ensure that all temporary and volatile directories
167 are removed and created according to the configuration file:
168 systemd-tmpfiles --remove --create
170
172 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
173 The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher
174 log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). Either
175 one of (in order of decreasing importance) emerg, alert, crit, err,
176 warning, notice, info, debug, or an integer in the range 0...7. See
177 syslog(3) for more information.
178 $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
180 A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored
181 according to priority.
182 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
184 the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display
185 logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.
186 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
188 A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a
189 timestamp.
190 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
192 the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that
193 display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on
194 their own.
195 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
197 A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and
198 line number in the source code where the message originates.
199 Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal
201 entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
202 nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.
203 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
205 The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
206 attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with
207 prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg
208 (log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log to the
209 journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to
210 kmsg otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target
211 automatically, the default), null (disable log output).
212 $SYSTEMD_PAGER
214 Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If
215 neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known
216 pager implementations are tried in turn, including less(1) and
217 more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
218 discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable
219 to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing
220 --no-pager.
221 $SYSTEMD_LESS
223 Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").
224 Users might want to change two options in particular:
226 K
228 This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C
229 is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch
230 back to the pager command prompt, unset this option.
231 If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the
233 pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the
234 executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.
235 X
237 This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
238 initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It
239 is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in
240 the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this
241 prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular
242 paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse.
243 See less(1) for more discussion.
245 $SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
247 Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the
248 invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).
249 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
251 Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager
252 is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
253 at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective UID is not the same
254 as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and
255 sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set
256 when invoking the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that
257 open or create new files or start new subprocesses. When
258 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not known
259 to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1)
260 implements secure mode.)
261 Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
263 example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure
264 that unintended interactive features are not enabled. "Secure" mode
265 for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
266 Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
267 environment allows the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that
268 if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured,
269 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be reasonable to
270 completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.
271 $SYSTEMD_COLORS
273 Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities
274 will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be
275 monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the
276 following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors
277 to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be
278 specified to override the automatic decision based on $TERM and
279 what the console is connected to.
280 $SYSTEMD_URLIFY
282 The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
283 should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting
284 this. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd
285 makes based on $TERM and other conditions.
286
288 systemd-tmpfiles tries to avoid changing the access and modification
289 times on the directories it accesses, which requires CAP_FOWNER
290 privileges. When running as non-root, directories which are checked for
291 files to clean up will have their access time bumped, which might
292 prevent their cleanup.
293
295 On success, 0 is returned. If the configuration was syntactically
296 invalid (syntax errors, missing arguments, ...), so some lines had to
297 be ignored, but no other errors occurred, 65 is returned (EX_DATAERR
298 from /usr/include/sysexits.h). If the configuration was syntactically
299 valid, but could not be executed (lack of permissions, creation of
300 files in missing directories, invalid contents when writing to /sys/
301 values, ...), 73 is returned (EX_CANTCREAT from
302 /usr/include/sysexits.h). Otherwise, 1 is returned (EXIT_FAILURE from
303 /usr/include/stdlib.h).
304 Note: when creating items, if the target already exists, but is of the
306 wrong type or otherwise does not match the requested state, and forced
307 operation has not been requested with "+", a message is emitted, but
308 the failure is otherwise ignored.
309
311 systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)
312
314 1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
315 https://systemd.io/DISCOVERABLE_PARTITIONS
316systemd 250 SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)