systemd-tmpfiles(8) — systemd — Debian trixie — Debian Manpages

systemd-tmpfiles(8) — systemd — Debian trixie — Debian Manpages
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NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
COMMANDS AND OPTIONS
CREDENTIALS
ENVIRONMENT
UNPRIVILEGED --CLEANUP OPERATION
EXIT STATUS
SEE ALSO
NOTES
other versions
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257.9-1~deb13u1
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257.9-1~deb13u1
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260.1-1
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systemd
systemd-standalone-tmpfiles
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SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
systemd-tmpfiles
SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
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
SYNOPSIS
systemd-tmpfiles
[OPTIONS...] [
CONFIGFILE
...]
System units:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.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 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.
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.
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.
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
$SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
below).
COMMANDS AND OPTIONS
The following commands are understood:
--create
If this command is passed, all files and directories
marked with
in the configuration files
are created or written to. Files and directories marked with
, and
have their ownership,
access mode and security labels set.
--clean
If this command is passed, all files and directories with
an age parameter configured will be cleaned up.
--remove
If this command is passed, the contents of directories
marked with
or
, and files or directories themselves marked
with
or
are removed unless an exclusive or shared BSD lock
is taken on them (see
flock(2)
).
--purge
If this option is passed, all files and directories
declared for
creation
and marked with the "$" character by
the tmpfiles.d/ files specified on the command line will be
deleted
Specifically, this acts on all files and directories marked with
. 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.
--user
Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d/
files in user configuration directories.
Added in version 236.
--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.
--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.
--dry-run
Process the configuration and print what operations would
be performed, but do not actually change anything in the file system.
Added in version 256.
--prefix=
path
Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified
prefix. This option can be specified multiple times.
Added in version 212.
--exclude-prefix=
path
Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified
prefix. This option can be specified multiple times.
Added in version 207.
-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.
--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.
Added in version 212.
--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
Added in version 247.
--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.
--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.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output.
Before each file, the filename is printed as a comment.
--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.
--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
ImportCredential=
LoadCredential=
SetCredential=
(see
systemd.exec(5)
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.
Added in version 252.
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). 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.
$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
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.
$SYSTEMD_LESS
Override the options passed to
less
(by default
"FRSXMK").
Users might want to change two options in particular:
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.
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
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.
$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,
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
2.
It is recommended for other tools to set and check
$SUDO_UID
as
appropriate, treating it is a common interface.
systemd 257.9
Source file:
systemd-tmpfiles.8.en.gz (from
systemd 257.9-1~deb13u1
Source last updated:
2025-09-03T18:38:20Z
Converted to HTML:
2026-04-11T20:45:37Z
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