systemd-tmpfiles

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.

       --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 ore 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

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.

       $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.

           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).

       $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 249                                                SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)