machinectl(1) — Linux manual page
machinectl(1) — Linux manual page
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/machinectl.1.html
| NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | MACHINE AND IMAGE NAMES | FILES AND DIRECTORIES | EXAMPLES | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
MACHINECTL(1) machinectl MACHINECTL(1) NAME top machinectl - Control the systemd machine manager SYNOPSIS top
machinectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [NAME...] DESCRIPTION top
machinectl may be used to introspect and control the state of the
systemd(1) virtual machine and container registration manager
systemd-machined.service(8).
machinectl may be used to execute operations on machines and
images. Machines in this sense are considered running instances
of:
• Virtual Machines (VMs) that virtualise hardware to run full
operating system (OS) instances (including their kernels) in a
virtualised environment on top of the host OS.
• Containers that share the hardware and OS kernel with the host
OS, in order to run OS userspace instances on top the host OS.
• The host system itself.
Machines are identified by names that follow the same rules as
UNIX and DNS hostnames. For details, see below.
Machines are instantiated from disk or file system images that
frequently — but not necessarily — carry the same name as machines
running from them. Images in this sense may be:
• Directory trees containing an OS, including the top-level
directories /usr/, /etc/, and so on.
• btrfs subvolumes containing OS trees, similar to regular
directory trees.
• Binary "raw" disk image files containing MBR or GPT partition
tables and Linux file systems.
• Similarly, block devices containing MBR or GPT partition
tables and file systems.
• The file system tree of the host OS itself.
Images may be downloaded, imported and exported via the
importctl(1) tool. COMMANDS top
The following commands are understood:
Machine Commands list List currently running (online) virtual machines and containers. To enumerate machine images that can be started, use list-images (see below). Note that this command hides the special “.host” machine by default. Use the –all switch to show it.
Added in version 206.
status NAME...
Show runtime status information about one or more virtual
machines and containers, followed by the most recent log data
from the journal. This function is intended to generate
human-readable output. If you are looking for
computer-parsable output, use show instead. Note that the log
data shown is reported by the virtual machine or container
manager, and frequently contains console output of the
machine, but not necessarily journal contents of the machine
itself.
Added in version 206.
show [NAME...]
Show properties of one or more registered virtual machines or
containers or the manager itself. If no argument is specified,
properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME is
specified, properties of this virtual machine or container are
shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all
to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use
--property=. This command is intended to be used whenever
computer-parsable output is required, and does not print the
control group tree or journal entries. Use status if you are
looking for formatted human-readable output.
Added in version 206.
start NAME...
Start a container as a system service, using
systemd-nspawn(1). This starts systemd-nspawn@.service,
instantiated for the specified machine name, similar to the
effect of systemctl start on the service name. systemd-nspawn
looks for a container image by the specified name in
/var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below) and
runs it. Use list-images (see below) for listing available
container images to start.
Note that systemd-machined.service(8) also interfaces with a
variety of other container and VM managers, systemd-nspawn is
just one implementation of it. Most of the commands available
in machinectl may be used on containers or VMs controlled by
other managers, not just systemd-nspawn. Starting VMs and
container images on those managers requires manager-specific
tools.
To interactively start a container on the command line with
full access to the container's console, please invoke
systemd-nspawn directly. To stop a running container use
machinectl poweroff.
Added in version 219.
login [NAME]
Open an interactive terminal login session in a container or
on the local host. If an argument is supplied, it refers to
the container machine to connect to. If none is specified, or
the container name is specified as the empty string, or the
special machine name ".host" (see below) is specified, the
connection is made to the local host instead. This will create
a TTY connection to a specific container or the local host and
asks for the execution of a getty on it. Note that this is
only supported for containers running systemd(1) as init
system.
This command will open a full login prompt on the container or
the local host, which then asks for username and password. Use
shell (see below) or systemd-run(1) with the --machine= switch
to directly invoke a single command, either interactively or
in the background.
Added in version 209.
shell [[NAME@]NAME [PATH [ARGUMENTS...]]]
Open an interactive shell session in a container or on the
local host. The first argument refers to the container machine
to connect to. If none is specified, or the machine name is
specified as the empty string, or the special machine name
".host" (see below) is specified, the connection is made to
the local host instead. This works similarly to login, but
immediately invokes a user process. This command runs the
specified executable with the specified arguments, or the
default shell for the user if none is specified, or /bin/sh if
no default shell is found. By default, --uid=, or by prefixing
the machine name with a username and an "@" character, a
different user may be selected. Use --setenv= to set
environment variables for the executed process.
Note that machinectl shell does not propagate the exit
code/status of the invoked shell process. Use systemd-run
instead if that information is required (see below).
Using the shell command without arguments (thus invoking the
executed shell or command on the local host), is in many ways
similar to a su(1) session, but, unlike su, completely
isolates the new session from the originating session, so that
it shares no process or session properties and is in a clean
well-defined state. It will be tracked in a new utmp, login,
audit, security, and keyring sessions, and will not inherit
any environment variables or resource limits, among other
properties.
Note that systemd-run(1) with its --machine= switch may be
used in place of the machinectl shell command, and allows
non-interactive operation, more detailed and low-level
configuration of the invoked unit, as well as access to
runtime and exit code/status information of the invoked shell
process. In particular, use systemd-run's --wait switch to
propagate exit status information of the invoked process. Use
systemd-run's --pty switch to acquire an interactive shell,
similarly to machinectl shell. In general, systemd-run is
preferable for scripting purposes. However, note that
systemd-run might require higher privileges than machinectl
shell.
Added in version 225.
enable NAME..., disable NAME...
Enable or disable a container as a system service to start at
system boot, using systemd-nspawn(1). This enables or disables
systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified
machine name, similarly to the effect of systemctl enable or
systemctl disable on the service name.
This command implicitly reloads the system manager
configuration after completing the operation. Note that this
command does not implicitly start or power off the containers
that are being operated on. If this is desired, combine the
command with the --now switch.
Added in version 219.
poweroff NAME...
Power off one or more containers. This will trigger a shutdown
by sending SIGRTMIN+4 to the container's init process, which
causes systemd-compatible init systems to shut down cleanly.
Use stop as alias for poweroff. This operation does not work
on containers that do not run a systemd(1)-compatible init
system, such as sysvinit. Use terminate (see below) to
immediately terminate a container or VM, without cleanly
shutting it down.
Added in version 212.
reboot NAME...
Reboot one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by
sending SIGINT to the container's init process, which is
roughly equivalent to pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a
non-containerised system, and is compatible with containers
running any system manager. Use restart as alias for reboot.
Added in version 209.
terminate NAME...
Immediately terminates a virtual machine or container, without
cleanly shutting it down. This kills all processes of the
virtual machine or container and deallocates all resources
attached to that instance. Use poweroff to issue a clean
shutdown request.
Added in version 206.
kill NAME...
Send a signal to one or more processes of the virtual machine
or container. This means processes as seen by the host, not
the processes inside the virtual machine or container. Use
--kill-whom= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to
select the signal to send.
Added in version 206.
bind NAME PATH [PATH]
Bind mounts a file or directory from the host into the
specified container. The first path argument is the source
file or directory on the host, the second path argument is the
destination file or directory in the container. When the
latter is omitted, the destination path in the container is
the same as the source path on the host. When combined with
the --read-only switch, a read-only bind mount is created.
When combined with the --mkdir switch, the destination path is
first created before the mount is applied. Note that this
option is currently only supported for systemd-nspawn(1)
containers, and only if user namespacing (--private-users) is
not used. This command supports bind mounting directories,
regular files, device nodes, AF_UNIX socket nodes, as well as
FIFOs.
Added in version 219.
copy-to NAME PATH [PATH] --force
Copies files or directories from the host system into a
running container. Takes a container name, followed by the
source path on the host and the destination path in the
container. If the destination path is omitted, the same as the
source path is used.
If host and container share the same user and group namespace,
file ownership by numeric user ID and group ID is preserved
for the copy, otherwise all files and directories in the copy
will be owned by the root user and group (UID/GID 0).
Added in version 219.
copy-from NAME PATH [PATH] --force
Copies files or directories from a container into the host
system. Takes a container name, followed by the source path in
the container and the destination path on the host. If the
destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is
used.
If host and container share the same user and group namespace,
file ownership by numeric user ID and group ID is preserved
for the copy, otherwise all files and directories in the copy
will be owned by the root user and group (UID/GID 0).
Added in version 219.
Image Commands list-images Show a list of locally installed container and VM images. This enumerates all raw disk images and container directories and subvolumes in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below). Use start (see above) to run a container off one of the listed images. Note that, by default, containers whose name begins with a dot (“.”) are not shown. To show these too, specify –all. Note that a special image “.host” always implicitly exists and refers to the image the host itself is booted from.
Added in version 219.
image-status [NAME...]
Show terse status information about one or more container or
VM images. This function is intended to generate
human-readable output. Use show-image (see below) to generate
computer-parsable output instead.
Added in version 219.
show-image [NAME...]
Show properties of one or more registered virtual machine or
container images, or the manager itself. If no argument is
specified, properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME
is specified, properties of this virtual machine or container
image are shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed.
Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to
show, use --property=. This command is intended to be used
whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use
image-status if you are looking for formatted human-readable
output.
Added in version 219.
edit NAME|FILE
Edit the settings file of the specified machines. For the
format of the settings file, refer to systemd.nspawn(5). If an
existing settings file of the given machine cannot be found,
edit automatically create a new settings file from scratch
under /etc/systemd/nspawn/.
Added in version 254.
cat NAME|FILE
Show the settings file of the specified machines.
Added in version 254.
clone NAME NAME
Clones a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name
of the image to clone and the name of the newly cloned image.
Note that plain directory container images are cloned into
btrfs subvolume images with this command, if the underlying
file system supports this. Note that cloning a container or VM
image is optimised for file systems that support
copy-on-write, and might not be efficient on others, due to
file system limitations.
Note that this command leaves hostname, machine ID and all
other settings that could identify the instance unmodified.
The original image and the cloned copy will hence share these
credentials, and it might be necessary to manually change them
in the copy.
If combined with the --read-only switch a read-only cloned
image is created.
Added in version 219.
rename NAME NAME
Renames a container or VM image. The arguments specify the
name of the image to rename and the new name of the image.
Added in version 219.
read-only NAME [BOOL]
Marks or (unmarks) a container or VM image read-only. Takes a
VM or container image name, followed by a boolean as
arguments. If the boolean is omitted, positive is implied,
i.e. the image is marked read-only.
Added in version 219.
remove NAME...
Removes one or more container or VM images. The special image
".host", which refers to the host's own directory tree, may
not be removed.
Added in version 219.
set-limit [NAME] BYTES
Sets the maximum size in bytes that a specific container or VM
image, or all images, may grow up to on disk (disk quota).
Takes either one or two parameters. The first, optional
parameter refers to a container or VM image name. If
specified, the size limit of the specified image is changed.
If omitted, the overall size limit of the sum of all images
stored locally is changed. The final argument specifies the
size limit in bytes, possibly suffixed by the usual K, M, G, T
units. If the size limit shall be disabled, specify "-" as
size.
Note that per-container size limits are only supported on
btrfs file systems.
Added in version 220.
clean
Remove hidden VM or container images (or all). This command
removes all hidden machine images from /var/lib/machines/,
i.e. those whose name begins with a dot. Use machinectl
list-images --all to see a list of all machine images,
including the hidden ones.
When combined with the --all switch removes all images, not
just hidden ones. This command effectively empties
/var/lib/machines/.
Note that commands such as importctl pull-tar or importctl
pull-raw usually create hidden, read-only, unmodified machine
images from the downloaded image first, before cloning a
writable working copy of it, in order to avoid duplicate
downloads in case of images that are reused multiple times.
Use machinectl clean to remove old, hidden images created this
way.
Added in version 230. OPTIONS top
The following options are understood:
-p, --property=
When showing machine or image properties, limit the output to
certain properties as specified by the argument. If not
specified, all set properties are shown. The argument should
be a property name, such as "Name". If specified more than
once, all properties with the specified names are shown.
Added in version 206.
--value
When printing properties with show, only print the value, and
skip the property name and "=".
Added in version 230.
-P
Equivalent to --value --property=, i.e. shows the value of the
property without the property name or "=". Note that using -P
once will also affect all properties listed with
-p/--property=.
Added in version 256.
-a, --all
When showing machine or image properties, show all properties
regardless of whether they are set or not.
When listing VM or container images, do not suppress images
beginning in a dot character (".").
When cleaning VM or container images, remove all images, not
just hidden ones.
Added in version 206.
-l, --full
Do not ellipsize process tree entries or table. This implies
--max-addresses=full.
Added in version 206.
--kill-whom=
When used with kill, choose which processes to kill. Must be
one of leader, supervisor, or all to select whether to kill
only the leader process of the machine, the supervisor process
of the machine, or all processes of the machine. If omitted,
defaults to all.
Added in version 206.
-s, --signal=
When used with kill, choose which signal to send to selected
processes. Must be one of the well-known signal specifiers
such as SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGSTOP. If omitted, defaults to
SIGTERM.
The special value "help" will list the known values and the
program will exit immediately, and the special value "list"
will list known values along with the numerical signal numbers
and the program will exit immediately.
--uid=
When used with the shell command, chooses the user ID to open
the interactive shell session as. If the argument to the shell
command also specifies a user name, this option is ignored. If
the name is not specified in either way, "root" will be used
by default. Note that this switch is not supported for the
login command (see below).
Added in version 225.
-E NAME[=VALUE], --setenv=NAME[=VALUE]
When used with the shell command, sets an environment variable
for the executed shell. This option may be used more than once
to set multiple variables. When "=" and VALUE are omitted, the
value of the variable with the same name in the program
environment will be used.
Note that this option is not supported for the login command.
Added in version 230.
--mkdir
When used with bind, creates the destination file or directory
before applying the bind mount. Note that even though the name
of this option suggests that it is suitable only for
directories, this option also creates the destination file
node to mount over if the object to mount is not a directory,
but a regular file, device node, socket or FIFO.
Added in version 219.
--read-only
When used with bind, creates a read-only bind mount.
When used with clone a read-only container or VM image is
created.
Added in version 219.
-n, --lines=
When used with status, controls the number of journal lines to
show, counting from the most recent ones. Takes a positive
integer argument. Defaults to 10.
Added in version 219.
-o, --output=
When used with status, controls the formatting of the journal
entries that are shown. For the available choices, see
journalctl(1). Defaults to "short".
Added in version 219.
--runner=nspawn|vmspawn
When operating on machines choose whether to use
systemd-nspawn(1) or systemd-vmspawn(1). By default
systemd-nspawn(1) is used.
Added in version 256.
-V
-V is a shorthand for --runner=vmspawn.
Added in version 256.
--now
When used with enable or disable, the containers will also be
started or powered off. The start or poweroff operation is
only carried out when the respective enable or disable
operation has been successful.
Added in version 253.
--force
Replace target file when copying files.
Added in version 219.
--max-addresses=
When used with the list-machines command, limits the number of
IP addresses shown for every machine. Defaults to 1. All
addresses can be requested with "all". If the limit is 0, the
address column is not shown. Otherwise, if the machine has
more addresses than shown, "..." follows the last address.
Added in version 232.
-q, --quiet
Suppresses additional informational output while running.
Added in version 236.
-H, --host=
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a
username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The
hostname may optionally be suffixed by a port ssh is listening
on, separated by ":", and then a container name, separated by
"/", which connects directly to a specific container on the
specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote
machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated
with machinectl -H HOST. Put IPv6 addresses in brackets.
-M, --machine=
Connect to systemd-machined.service(8) running in a local
container, to perform the specified operation within the
container.
Added in version 235.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
--no-legend
Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer
with hints.
--no-ask-password
Do not query the user for authentication for privileged
operations.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit. MACHINE AND IMAGE NAMES top
The machinectl tool operates on machines and images whose names
must be chosen following strict rules. Machine names must be
suitable for use as hostnames following a conservative subset of
DNS and UNIX/Linux semantics. Specifically, they must consist of
one or more non-empty label strings, separated by dots. No leading
or trailing dots are allowed. No sequences of multiple dots are
allowed. The label strings may only consist of alphanumeric
characters as well as the dash. The maximum length of a machine
name is 64 characters.
A special machine with the name ".host" refers to the running host
system itself. This is useful for execution operations or
inspecting the host system as well. Note that machinectl list will
not show this special machine unless the --all switch is
specified.
Requirements on image names are less strict, however, they must be
valid UTF-8, must be suitable as file names (hence not be the
single or double dot, and not include a slash), and may not
contain control characters. Since many operations search for an
image by the name of a requested machine, it is recommended to
name images in the same strict fashion as machines.
A special image with the name ".host" refers to the image of the
running host system. It hence conceptually maps to the special
".host" machine name described above. Note that machinectl
list-images will not show this special image either, unless --all
is specified. FILES AND DIRECTORIES top
Machine images are preferably stored in /var/lib/machines/, but
are also searched for in /usr/local/lib/machines/ and
/usr/lib/machines/. For compatibility reasons, the directory
/var/lib/container/ is searched, too. Note that images stored
below /usr/ are always considered read-only. It is possible to
symlink machines images from other directories into
/var/lib/machines/ to make them available for control with
machinectl.
Note that some image operations are only supported, efficient or
atomic on btrfs file systems.
Disk images are understood by systemd-nspawn(1) and machinectl in
three formats:
• A simple directory tree, containing the files and directories
of the container to boot.
• Subvolumes (on btrfs file systems), which are similar to the
simple directories, described above. However, they have
additional benefits, such as efficient cloning and quota
reporting.
• "Raw" disk images, i.e. binary images of disks with a GPT or
MBR partition table. Images of this type are regular files
with the suffix ".raw".
See systemd-nspawn(1) for more information on image formats, in
particular its --directory= and --image= options. EXAMPLES top
Example 1. Download an Ubuntu RAW image, set a root password in
it, start it as a service
# importctl pull-raw -mN \
https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/jammy/current/jammy-server-cloudimg-amd64-disk-kvm.img \
jammy
# systemd-firstboot --image=/var/lib/machines/jammy.raw --prompt-root-password --force
# machinectl start jammy
# machinectl login jammy
This downloads the specified .raw image and makes it available
under the local name "jammy". Then, a root password is set with
systemd-firstboot(1). Afterwards the machine is started as system
service. With the last command a login prompt into the container
is requested. EXIT STATUS top
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise. ENVIRONMENT top
$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 colour 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_TID
A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with the current
numerical thread ID (TID).
Note that the this information is 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_LOG_RATELIMIT_KMSG
Whether to ratelimit kmsg or not. Takes a boolean. Defaults to
"true". If disabled, systemd will not ratelimit messages
written to kmsg.
$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:
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
initialisation and deinitialisation 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 [1]).
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 colours 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 colours to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colours,
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. SEE ALSO top
systemd(1), systemd-machined.service(8), systemd-nspawn(1),
systemd.special(7), importctl(1), tar(1), xz(1), gzip(1),
bzip2(1), zstd(1) NOTES top
1. It is recommended for other tools to set and check $SUDO_UID
as appropriate, treating it is a common interface. COLOPHON top
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
manager) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-11.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
systemd 258~rc2 MACHINECTL(1) Pages that refer to this page: busctl(1), importctl(1), run0(1), systemctl(1), systemd-nspawn(1), systemd-run(1), systemd-vmspawn(1), sd_bus_default(3), sd_bus_set_address(3), org.freedesktop.machine1(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), nss-mymachines(8), systemd-machined.service(8)
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface.
For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here.
Hosting by jambit GmbH.