1SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) systemd-tmpfiles SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
2
6 systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
7 setup-dev-early.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-
8 tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer - Creates, deletes
9 and cleans up volatile and temporary files and directories
10
12 systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
13 System units:
15 systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
17 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.service
18 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
19 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
20 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
21 User units:
23 systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
25 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
26 systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer
27
29 systemd-tmpfiles creates, deletes, and cleans up volatile and temporary
30 files and directories, using the configuration file format and location
31 specified in tmpfiles.d(5). It must be invoked with one or more options
32 --create, --remove, and --clean, to select the respective subset of
33 operations.
34 By default, directives from all configuration files are applied. When
36 invoked with --replace=PATH, arguments specified on the command line
37 are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise, if one or
38 more absolute filenames are passed on the command line, only the
39 directives in these files are applied. If "-" is specified instead of a
40 filename, directives are read from standard input. If only the basename
41 of a configuration file is specified, all configuration directories as
42 specified in tmpfiles.d(5) are searched for a matching file and the
43 file found that has the highest priority is executed.
44 System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service,
46 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.service,
47 systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service)
48 invoke systemd-tmpfiles to create system files and to perform system
49 wide cleanup. Those services read administrator-controlled
50 configuration files in tmpfiles.d/ directories. User services
51 (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service) also
52 invoke systemd-tmpfiles, but it reads a separate set of files, which
53 includes user-controlled files under ~/.config/user-tmpfiles.d/ and
54 ~/.local/share/user-tmpfiles.d/, and administrator-controlled files
55 under /usr/share/user-tmpfiles.d/. Users may use this to create and
56 clean up files under their control, but the system instance performs
57 global cleanup and is not influenced by user configuration. Note that
58 this means a time-based cleanup configured in the system instance, such
59 as the one typically configured for /tmp/, will thus also affect files
60 created by the user instance if they are placed in /tmp/, even if the
61 user instance's time-based cleanup is turned off.
62 To re-apply settings after configuration has been modified, simply
64 restart systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, which will apply any settings
65 which can be safely executed at runtime. To debug systemd-tmpfiles, it
66 may be useful to invoke it directly from the command line with
67 increased log level (see $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL below).
68
70 The following options are understood:
71 --create
73 If this option is passed, all files and directories marked with f,
74 F, w, d, D, v, p, L, c, b, m in the configuration files are created
75 or written to. Files and directories marked with z, Z, t, T, a, and
76 A have their ownership, access mode and security labels set.
77 --clean
79 If this option is passed, all files and directories with an age
80 parameter configured will be cleaned up.
81 --remove
83 If this option is passed, the contents of directories marked with D
84 or R, and files or directories themselves marked with r or R are
85 removed unless an exclusive or shared BSD lock is taken on them
86 (see flock(2)).
87 --user
89 Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d files in user
90 configuration directories.
91 --boot
93 Also execute lines with an exclamation mark. Lines that are not
94 safe to be executed on a running system may be marked in this way.
95 systemd-tmpfiles is executed in early boot with --boot specified
96 and will execute those lines. When invoked again later, it should
97 be called without --boot.
98 --graceful
100 Ignore configuration lines pertaining to unknown users or groups.
101 This option is intended to be used in early boot before all users
102 or groups have been created.
103 --prefix=path
105 Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified prefix.
106 This option can be specified multiple times.
107 --exclude-prefix=path
109 Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix. This
110 option can be specified multiple times.
111 -E
113 A shortcut for "--exclude-prefix=/dev --exclude-prefix=/proc
114 --exclude-prefix=/run --exclude-prefix=/sys", i.e. exclude the
115 hierarchies typically backed by virtual or memory file systems.
116 This is useful in combination with --root=, if the specified
117 directory tree contains an OS tree without these virtual/memory
118 file systems mounted in, as it is typically not desirable to create
119 any files and directories below these subdirectories if they are
120 supposed to be overmounted during runtime.
121 --root=root
123 Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed
124 with the given alternate root path, including config search paths.
125 When this option is used, the libc Name Service Switch (NSS) is
127 bypassed for resolving users and groups. Instead the files
128 /etc/passwd and /etc/group inside the alternate root are read
129 directly. This means that users/groups not listed in these files
130 will not be resolved, i.e. LDAP NIS and other complex databases are
131 not considered.
132 Consider combining this with -E to ensure the invocation does not
134 create files or directories below mount points in the OS image
135 operated on that are typically overmounted during runtime.
136 --image=image
138 Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
139 specified all operations are applied to file system in the
140 indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but operates on
141 file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The disk image
142 should either contain just a file system or a set of file systems
143 within a GPT partition table, following the Discoverable Partitions
144 Specification[1]. For further information on supported disk images,
145 see systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the same name.
146 Implies -E.
148 --image-policy=policy
150 Takes an image policy string as argument, as per systemd.image-
151 policy(7). The policy is enforced when operating on the disk image
152 specified via --image=, see above. If not specified defaults to the
153 "*" policy, i.e. all recognized file systems in the image are used.
154 --replace=PATH
156 When this option is given, one or more positional arguments must be
157 specified. All configuration files found in the directories listed
158 in tmpfiles.d(5) will be read, and the configuration given on the
159 command line will be handled instead of and with the same priority
160 as the configuration file PATH.
161 This option is intended to be used when package installation
163 scripts are running and files belonging to that package are not yet
164 available on disk, so their contents must be given on the command
165 line, but the admin configuration might already exist and should be
166 given higher priority.
167 --cat-config
169 Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before each
170 file, the filename is printed as a comment.
171 --no-pager
173 Do not pipe output into a pager.
174 -h, --help
176 Print a short help text and exit.
177 --version
179 Print a short version string and exit.
180 It is possible to combine --create, --clean, and --remove in one
182 invocation (in which case removal and cleanup are executed before
183 creation of new files). For example, during boot the following command
184 line is executed to ensure that all temporary and volatile directories
185 are removed and created according to the configuration file:
186 systemd-tmpfiles --remove --create
188
190 systemd-tmpfiles supports the service credentials logic as implemented
191 by ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see
192 systemd.exec(1) for details). The following credentials are used when
193 passed in:
194 tmpfiles.extra
196 The contents of this credential may contain additional lines to
197 operate on. The credential contents should follow the same format
198 as any other tmpfiles.d/ drop-in configuration file. If this
199 credential is passed it is processed after all of the drop-in files
200 read from the file system. The lines in the credential can hence
201 augment existing lines of the OS, but not override them.
202 Note that by default the systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service unit file (and
204 related unit files) is set up to inherit the "tmpfiles.extra"
205 credential from the service manager.
206
208 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
209 The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher
210 log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). Either
211 one of (in order of decreasing importance) emerg, alert, crit, err,
212 warning, notice, info, debug, or an integer in the range 0...7. See
213 syslog(3) for more information.
214 $SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
216 A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored
217 according to priority.
218 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
220 the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display
221 logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.
222 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
224 A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a
225 timestamp.
226 This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
228 the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that
229 display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on
230 their own.
231 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
233 A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and
234 line number in the source code where the message originates.
235 Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal
237 entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
238 nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.
239 $SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
241 The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
242 attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with
243 prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg
244 (log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log to the
245 journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to
246 kmsg otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target
247 automatically, the default), null (disable log output).
248 $SYSTEMD_PAGER
250 Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If
251 neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known
252 pager implementations are tried in turn, including less(1) and
253 more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
254 discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable
255 to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing
256 --no-pager.
257 Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER (as well
259 as $PAGER) will be silently ignored.
260 $SYSTEMD_LESS
262 Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").
263 Users might want to change two options in particular:
265 K
267 This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C
268 is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch
269 back to the pager command prompt, unset this option.
270 If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the
272 pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the
273 executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.
274 X
276 This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
277 initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It
278 is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in
279 the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this
280 prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular
281 paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse.
282 See less(1) for more discussion.
284 $SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
286 Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the
287 invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).
288 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
290 Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager
291 is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
292 at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective UID is not the same
293 as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and
294 sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set
295 when invoking the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that
296 open or create new files or start new subprocesses. When
297 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not known
298 to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1)
299 implements secure mode.)
300 Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
302 example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure
303 that unintended interactive features are not enabled. "Secure" mode
304 for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
305 Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
306 environment allows the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that
307 if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured,
308 $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be reasonable to
309 completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.
310 $SYSTEMD_COLORS
312 Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities
313 will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be
314 monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the
315 following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors
316 to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be
317 specified to override the automatic decision based on $TERM and
318 what the console is connected to.
319 $SYSTEMD_URLIFY
321 The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
322 should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting
323 this. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd
324 makes based on $TERM and other conditions.
325
327 systemd-tmpfiles tries to avoid changing the access and modification
328 times on the directories it accesses, which requires CAP_FOWNER
329 privileges. When running as non-root, directories which are checked for
330 files to clean up will have their access time bumped, which might
331 prevent their cleanup.
332
334 On success, 0 is returned. If the configuration was syntactically
335 invalid (syntax errors, missing arguments, ...), so some lines had to
336 be ignored, but no other errors occurred, 65 is returned (EX_DATAERR
337 from /usr/include/sysexits.h). If the configuration was syntactically
338 valid, but could not be executed (lack of permissions, creation of
339 files in missing directories, invalid contents when writing to /sys/
340 values, ...), 73 is returned (EX_CANTCREAT from
341 /usr/include/sysexits.h). Otherwise, 1 is returned (EXIT_FAILURE from
342 /usr/include/stdlib.h).
343 Note: when creating items, if the target already exists, but is of the
345 wrong type or otherwise does not match the requested state, and forced
346 operation has not been requested with "+", a message is emitted, but
347 the failure is otherwise ignored.
348
350 systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)
351
353 1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
354 https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification
355systemd 254 SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)