systemd-run — Run programs in transient scope units, service units, or path-, socket-, or timer-triggered service units
systemd-run [OPTIONS...] COMMAND
[ARGS...]
systemd-run [OPTIONS...] [PATH OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [ARGS...]
systemd-run [OPTIONS...] [SOCKET OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [ARGS...]
systemd-run [OPTIONS...] [TIMER OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [ARGS...]
systemd-run may be used to create and start a transient .service or
.scope unit and run the specified COMMAND in it. It may also be
used to create and start a transient .path, .socket, or
.timer unit, that activates a .service unit when elapsing.
If a command is run as transient service unit, it will be started and managed by the service manager like any
other service, and thus shows up in the output of systemctl list-units like any other unit. It
will run in a clean and detached execution environment, with the service manager as its parent process. In this
mode, systemd-run will start the service asynchronously in the background and return after the
command has begun execution (unless --no-block, --wait, --pipe,
or --pty are specified, see below).
If a command is run as transient scope unit, it will be executed by systemd-run
itself as parent process and will thus inherit the execution environment of the caller. However, the
processes of the command are managed by the service manager similarly to normal services, and will show
up in the output of systemctl list-units. Execution in this case is synchronous, and
will return only when the command finishes. This mode is enabled via the --scope switch
(see below).
If a command is run with path, socket, or timer options such as --on-calendar= (see below),
a transient path, socket, or timer unit is created alongside the service unit for the specified command. Only the
transient path, socket, or timer unit is started immediately, the transient service unit will be triggered by the
path, socket, or timer unit. If the --unit= option is specified, the
COMMAND may be omitted. In this case, systemd-run creates only a
.path, .socket, or .timer unit that triggers the
specified unit.
By default, services created with systemd-run default to the
simple type, see the description of Type= in
systemd.service(5) for
details. Note that when this type is used, the service manager (and thus the
systemd-run command) considers service start-up successful as soon as the
fork() for the main service process succeeded, i.e. before the
execve() is invoked, and thus even if the specified command cannot be started.
Consider using the exec service type (i.e. --property=Type=exec) to
ensure that systemd-run returns successfully only if the specified command line has
been successfully started.
After systemd-run passes the command to the service manager, the manager
performs variable expansion. This means that dollar characters ("$") which should not be
expanded need to be escaped as "$$". Expansion can also be disabled using
--expand-environment=no.
The following options are understood:
--scope¶Create a transient .scope unit instead of the default transient
.service unit (see above).
--unit=, -u¶Use this unit name instead of an automatically generated one.
--property=, -p¶Sets a property on the scope or service unit that is created. This option takes an assignment in the same format as systemctl(1)'s set-property command.
--description=¶Provide a description for the service, scope, path, socket, or timer unit. If not specified,
the command itself will be used as a description. See Description= in
systemd.unit(5).
--slice=¶Make the new .service or .scope unit part
of the specified slice, instead of system.slice (when running in
--system mode) or the root slice (when running in --user
mode).
--slice-inherit¶Make the new .service or .scope unit part
of the slice the systemd-run itself has been invoked in. This option may be
combined with --slice=, in which case the slice specified via
--slice= is placed within the slice the systemd-run command is
invoked in.
Example: consider systemd-run being invoked in the slice
foo.slice, and the --slice= argument is
bar. The unit will then be placed under
foo-bar.slice.
--expand-environment=BOOL¶Expand environment variables in command arguments. If enabled, environment variables
specified as "${" will be expanded in the same
way as in commands specified via VARIABLE}ExecStart= in units. With
--scope, this expansion is performed by systemd-run itself, and
in other cases by the service manager that spawns the command. Note that this is similar to, but not
the same as variable expansion in
bash(1)
and other shells.
The default is to enable this option in all cases, except for --scope where
it is disabled by default, for backward compatibility reasons. Note that this will be changed in a
future release, where it will be switched to enabled by default as well.
See
systemd.service(5)
for a description of variable expansion. Disabling variable expansion is useful if the specified
command includes or may include a "$" sign.
-r, --remain-after-exit¶After the service process has terminated, keep the service around until it is explicitly
stopped. This is useful to collect runtime information about the service after it finished running. Also see
RemainAfterExit= in
systemd.service(5).
--send-sighup¶When terminating the scope or service unit, send a SIGHUP immediately after SIGTERM. This is
useful to indicate to shells and shell-like processes that the connection has been severed. Also see
SendSIGHUP= in
systemd.kill(5).
--service-type=¶Sets the service type. Also see
Type= in
systemd.service(5). This
option has no effect in conjunction with
--scope. Defaults to
simple.
--uid=, --gid=¶Runs the service process under the specified UNIX user and group. Also see
User= and Group= in
systemd.exec(5).
--nice=¶Runs the service process with the specified
nice level. Also see Nice= in
systemd.exec(5).
--working-directory=¶Runs the service process with the specified working directory. Also see
WorkingDirectory= in
systemd.exec(5).
--same-dir, -d¶Similar to --working-directory=, but uses the current working
directory of the caller for the service to execute.
-E NAME[=VALUE], --setenv=NAME[=VALUE]¶Runs the service process with the specified environment variable set. This parameter
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.
Also see Environment= in
systemd.exec(5).
--pty, -t¶When invoking the command, the transient service connects its standard input, output and error to the terminal systemd-run is invoked on, via a pseudo TTY device. This allows running programs that expect interactive user input/output as services, such as interactive command shells.
This option will result in systemd-run synchronously waiting for
the transient service to terminate, similar to specifying --wait. If specified
along with --wait, systemd-run won't exit when manually disconnecting
from the pseudo TTY device.
Note that machinectl(1)'s shell command is usually a better alternative for requesting a new, interactive login session on the local host or a local container.
See below for details on how this switch combines with --pipe.
--pipe, -P¶If specified, standard input, output, and error of the transient service are inherited from the systemd-run command itself. This allows systemd-run to be used within shell pipelines.
Note that this mode is not suitable for interactive command shells and similar, as the
service process will not become a TTY controller when invoked on a terminal. Use --pty
instead in that case.
When both --pipe and --pty are used in combination the more appropriate
option is automatically determined and used. Specifically, when invoked with standard input, output and error
connected to a TTY --pty is used, and otherwise --pipe.
This option will result in systemd-run synchronously waiting for
the transient service to terminate, similar to specifying --wait.
When this option is used the original file descriptors systemd-run receives are passed to the service processes as-is. If the service runs with different privileges than systemd-run, this means the service might not be able to reopen the passed file descriptors, due to normal file descriptor access restrictions. If the invoked process is a shell script that uses the echo "hello" >/dev/stderr construct for writing messages to stderr, this might cause problems, as this only works if stderr can be reopened. To mitigate this use the construct echo "hello" >&2 instead, which is mostly equivalent and avoids this pitfall.
--shell, -S¶A shortcut for "--pty --same-dir --wait --collect --service-type=exec $SHELL",
i.e. requests an interactive shell in the current working directory, running in service context, accessible
with a single switch.
--quiet, -q¶Suppresses additional informational output
while running. This is particularly useful in combination with
--pty when it will suppress the initial
message explaining how to terminate the TTY connection.
--on-active=, --on-boot=, --on-startup=, --on-unit-active=, --on-unit-inactive=¶Defines a monotonic timer relative to different starting points for starting the specified
command. See OnActiveSec=, OnBootSec=, OnStartupSec=,
OnUnitActiveSec= and OnUnitInactiveSec= in
systemd.timer(5) for
details. These options are shortcuts for --timer-property= with the relevant properties.
These options may not be combined with --scope or --pty.
--on-calendar=¶Defines a calendar timer for starting the specified command. See OnCalendar=
in systemd.timer(5). This
option is a shortcut for --timer-property=OnCalendar=. This option may not be combined with
--scope or --pty.
--on-clock-change, --on-timezone-change¶Defines a trigger based on system clock jumps or timezone changes for starting the
specified command. See OnClockChange= and OnTimezoneChange= in
systemd.timer(5). These
options are shortcuts for --timer-property=OnClockChange=yes and
--timer-property=OnTimezoneChange=yes. These options may not be combined with
--scope or --pty.
--path-property=, --socket-property=, --timer-property=¶Sets a property on the path, socket, or timer unit that is created. This option is
similar to --property=, but applies to the transient path, socket, or timer unit
rather than the transient service unit created. This option takes an assignment in the same format as
systemctl(1)'s
set-property command. These options may not be combined with
--scope or --pty.
--no-block¶Do not synchronously wait for the unit start operation to finish. If this option is not specified, the
start request for the transient unit will be verified, enqueued and systemd-run will wait
until the unit's start-up is completed. By passing this argument, it is only verified and enqueued. This
option may not be combined with --wait.
--wait¶Synchronously wait for the transient service to terminate. If this option is specified, the
start request for the transient unit is verified, enqueued, and waited for. Subsequently the invoked unit is
monitored, and it is waited until it is deactivated again (most likely because the specified command
completed). On exit, terse information about the unit's runtime is shown, including total runtime (as well as
CPU usage, if --property=CPUAccounting=1 was set) and the exit code and status of the main
process. This output may be suppressed with --quiet. This option may not be combined with
--no-block, --scope or the various path, socket, or timer options.
-G, --collect¶Unload the transient unit after it completed, even if it failed. Normally, without this option,
all units that ran and failed are kept in memory until the user explicitly resets their failure state with
systemctl reset-failed or an equivalent command. On the other hand, units that ran
successfully are unloaded immediately. If this option is turned on the "garbage collection" of units is more
aggressive, and unloads units regardless if they exited successfully or failed. This option is a shortcut for
--property=CollectMode=inactive-or-failed, see the explanation for
CollectMode= in
systemd.unit(5) for further
information.
--ignore-failure¶By default, if the specified command fails the invoked unit will be marked failed
(though possibly still unloaded, see --collect=, above), and this is reported in the
logs. If this switch is specified this is suppressed and any non-success exit status/code of the
command is treated as success.
--background=COLOR¶Change the terminal background color to the specified ANSI color as long as the
session lasts. The color specified should be an ANSI X3.64 SGR background color, i.e. strings such as
"40", "41", …, "47", "48;2;…",
"48;5;…". See ANSI
Escape Code (Wikipedia) for details.
--user¶Talk to the service manager of the calling user, rather than the service manager of the system.
--system¶Talk to the service manager of the system. This is the implied default.
-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=¶Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to, optionally
prefixed by a user name to connect as and a separating "@" character. If the special
string ".host" is used in place of the container name, a connection to the local
system is made (which is useful to connect to a specific user's user bus: "--user
--machine=lennart@.host"). If the "@" syntax is not used, the connection is
made as root user. If the "@" syntax is used either the left hand side or the right hand
side may be omitted (but not both) in which case the local user name and ".host" are
implied.
-C, --capsule=¶Execute operation on a capsule. Specify a capsule name to connect to. See capsule@.service(5) for details about capsules.
--no-ask-password¶Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
-h, --help¶--version¶--json=MODE¶Shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of "short" (for the
shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace or line breaks), "pretty"
(for a pretty version of the same, with indentation and line breaks) or "off" (to turn
off JSON output, the default).
All command line arguments after the first non-option argument become part of the command line of the launched process.
On success, 0 is returned. If systemd-run failed to start the service, a
non-zero return value will be returned. If systemd-run waits for the service to
terminate, the return value will be propagated from the service. 0 will be returned on success, including
all the cases where systemd considers a service to have exited cleanly, see the discussion of
SuccessExitStatus= in
systemd.service(5).
Example 1. Logging environment variables provided by systemd to services
# systemd-run env Running as unit: run-19945.service # journalctl -u run-19945.service Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis systemd[1]: Starting /usr/bin/env... Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis systemd[1]: Started /usr/bin/env. Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.11.0-0.rc5.git6.2.fc20.x86_64
Example 2. Limiting resources available to a command
# systemd-run -p IOWeight=10 updatedb
This command invokes the updatedb(8)
tool, but lowers the block I/O weight for it to 10. See
systemd.resource-control(5)
for more information on the IOWeight= property.
Example 3. Running commands at a specified time
The following command will touch a file after 30 seconds.
# date; systemd-run --on-active=30 --timer-property=AccuracySec=100ms /bin/touch /tmp/foo Mon Dec 8 20:44:24 KST 2014 Running as unit: run-71.timer Will run service as unit: run-71.service # journalctl -b -u run-71.timer -- Journal begins at Fri 2014-12-05 19:09:21 KST, ends at Mon 2014-12-08 20:44:54 KST. -- Dec 08 20:44:38 container systemd[1]: Starting /bin/touch /tmp/foo. Dec 08 20:44:38 container systemd[1]: Started /bin/touch /tmp/foo. # journalctl -b -u run-71.service -- Journal begins at Fri 2014-12-05 19:09:21 KST, ends at Mon 2014-12-08 20:44:54 KST. -- Dec 08 20:44:48 container systemd[1]: Starting /bin/touch /tmp/foo... Dec 08 20:44:48 container systemd[1]: Started /bin/touch /tmp/foo.
Example 4. Allowing access to the tty
The following command invokes bash(1) as a service passing its standard input, output and error to the calling TTY.
# systemd-run -t --send-sighup bash
Example 5. Start screen as a user service
$ systemd-run --scope --user screen
Running scope as unit run-r14b0047ab6df45bfb45e7786cc839e76.scope.
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
492..laptop (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-fatima.
This starts the screen process as a child of the
systemd --user process that was started by
user@.service, in a scope unit. A
systemd.scope(5)
unit is used instead of a
systemd.service(5)
unit, because screen will exit when detaching from the terminal,
and a service unit would be terminated. Running screen
as a user unit has the advantage that it is not part of the session scope.
If KillUserProcesses=yes is configured in
logind.conf(5),
the default, the session scope will be terminated when the user logs
out of that session.
The user@.service is started automatically
when the user first logs in, and stays around as long as at least one
login session is open. After the user logs out of the last session,
user@.service and all services underneath it
are terminated. This behavior is the default, when "lingering" is
not enabled for that user. Enabling lingering means that
user@.service is started automatically during
boot, even if the user is not logged in, and that the service is
not terminated when the user logs out.
Enabling lingering allows the user to run processes without being logged in, for example to allow screen to persist after the user logs out, even if the session scope is terminated. In the default configuration, users can enable lingering for themselves:
$ loginctl enable-linger
Example 6. Variable expansion by the manager
$ systemd-run -t echo "<${INVOCATION_ID}>" '<${INVOCATION_ID}>'
<> <5d0149bfa2c34b79bccb13074001eb20>
The first argument is expanded by the shell (double quotes), but the second one is not expanded
by the shell (single quotes).
echo(1)
is called with ["/usr/bin/echo",
"<>", "<${INVOCATION_ID}>"] as the argument array, and then
systemd(1)
generates ${INVOCATION_ID} and substitutes it in the command-line. This substitution
could not be done on the client side, because the target ID that will be set for the service isn't
known before the call is made.
Example 7. Variable expansion and output redirection using a shell
Variable expansion by
systemd(1)
can be disabled with --expand-environment=no.
Disabling variable expansion can be useful if the command to execute contains dollar characters and escaping them would be inconvenient. For example, when a shell is used:
$ systemd-run --expand-environment=no -t bash \
-c 'echo $SHELL $$ >/dev/stdout'
/bin/bash 12345
The last argument is passed verbatim to the
bash(1)
shell which is started by the service unit. The shell expands "$SHELL" to the path of
the shell, and "$$" to its process number, and then those strings are passed to the
echo built-in and printed to standard output (which in this case is connected to the
calling terminal).
Example 8. Return value
$ systemd-run --user --wait true
$ systemd-run --user --wait -p SuccessExitStatus=11 bash -c 'exit 11'
$ systemd-run --user --wait -p SuccessExitStatus=SIGUSR1 --expand-environment=no \
bash -c 'kill -SIGUSR1 $$'Those three invocations will succeed, i.e. terminate with an exit code of 0.