Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed with the given alternate root path, including config search paths. This is useful to operate on a system image mounted to the specified directory instead of the host system itself.

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.

Sets the system locale, more specifically the LANG= and LC_MESSAGES settings. The argument should be a valid locale identifier, such as "de_DE.UTF-8". This controls the locale.conf(5) configuration file.

Sets the system keyboard layout. The argument should be a valid keyboard map, such as "de-latin1". This controls the "KEYMAP" entry in the vconsole.conf(5) configuration file.

Sets the system time zone. The argument should be a valid time zone identifier, such as "Europe/Berlin". This controls the localtime(5) symlink.

Sets the system hostname. The argument should be a hostname, compatible with DNS. This controls the hostname(5) configuration file.

Initialize the system's machine ID to a random ID. This controls the machine-id(5) file.

This option only works in combination with --root= or --image=. On a running system, machine-id is written by the manager with help from systemd-machine-id-commit.service(8).

Set the system's machine ID to the specified value. The same restrictions apply as to --setup-machine-id.

Sets the password of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd(5) and shadow(5) files. This setting exists in three forms: --root-password= accepts the password to set directly on the command line, --root-password-file= reads it from a file and --root-password-hashed= accepts an already hashed password on the command line. See shadow(5) for more information on the format of the hashed password. Note that it is not recommended to specify plaintext passwords on the command line, as other users might be able to see them simply by invoking ps(1).

Sets the shell of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd(5) file.

Sets the system's kernel command line. This controls the /etc/kernel/cmdline file which is used by kernel-install(8).

Prompt the user interactively for a specific basic setting. Note that any explicit configuration settings specified on the command line take precedence, and the user is not prompted for it.

Query the user for locale, keymap, timezone, hostname, root's password, and root's shell. This is equivalent to specifying --prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap, --prompt-timezone, --prompt-hostname, --prompt-root-password, --prompt-root-shell in combination.

Copy a specific basic setting from the host. This only works in combination with --root= or --image=.

Copy locale, keymap, time zone, root password and shell from the host. This is equivalent to specifying --copy-locale, --copy-keymap, --copy-timezone, --copy-root-password, --copy-root-shell in combination.

Write configuration even if the relevant files already exist. Without this option, systemd-firstboot doesn't modify or replace existing files. Note that when configuring the root account, even with this option, systemd-firstboot only modifies the entry of the "root" user, leaving other entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow intact.

If specified, all existing files that are configured by systemd-firstboot are removed. Note that the files are removed regardless of whether they'll be configured with a new value or not. This operation ensures that the next boot of the image will be considered a first boot, and systemd-firstboot will prompt again to configure each of the removed files.

Removes the password of the system's root user, enabling login as root without a password unless the root account is locked. Note that this is extremely insecure and hence this option should not be used lightly.

Takes a boolean argument. By default when prompting the user for configuration options a brief welcome text is shown before the first question is asked. Pass false to this option to turn off the welcome text.

Print a short help text and exit.

Print a short version string and exit.

A hashed or plaintext version of the root password to use, in place of prompting the user. These credentials are equivalent to the same ones defined for the systemd-sysusers.service(8) service.

Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account. Equivalent to the credential of the same name defined for the systemd-sysusers.service(8) service.

These credentials specify the locale settings to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user.

This credential specifies the keyboard setting to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user.

Note the relationship to the vconsole.keymap credential understood by systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8): both ultimately affect the same setting, but firstboot.keymap is written into /etc/vconsole.conf on first boot (if not already configured), and then read from there by systemd-vconsole-setup, while vconsole.keymap is read on every boot, and is not persisted to disk (but any configuration in vconsole.conf will take precedence if present).

This credential specifies the system timezone setting to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user.

Takes a boolean argument, defaults to on. If off, systemd-firstboot.service won't interactively query the user for basic settings at first boot, even if those settings are not initialized yet.