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
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
systemd-tmpfiles creates, deletes, and cleans up volatile and temporary files and directories, based on the configuration file format and location specified in tmpfiles.d(5).
If invoked with no arguments, it applies all directives from all configuration
files. When invoked with --replace=,
arguments specified on the command line are used instead of the configuration file
PATHPATH. 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.
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. 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¶--version¶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
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.
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).