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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS AND OPTIONS | CREDENTIALS | ENVIRONMENT | UNPRIVILEGED --CLEANUP OPERATION | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8) systemd-tmpfiles SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
systemd-tmpfiles, systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service, systemd-
tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.service, systemd-tmpfiles-setup-
dev.service, systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service, systemd-tmpfiles-
clean.timer - Create, delete, and clean up files and directories
systemd-tmpfiles [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
System units:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.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 files and
directories, using the configuration file format and location
specified in tmpfiles.d(5). Historically, it was designed to
manage volatile and temporary files, as the name suggests, but it
provides generic file management functionality and can be used to
manage any kind of files. It must be invoked with one or more
commands --create, --remove, and --clean, to select the respective
subset of operations.
If invoked with no arguments, directives from the configuration
files found in the directories specified by tmpfiles.d(5) are
executed. When invoked with positional arguments, if option
--replace=PATH is specified, arguments specified on the command
line are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise,
just the configuration specified by the command line arguments is
executed. If the string "-" is specified instead of a filename,
the configuration is read from standard input. If the argument is
a file name (without any slashes), all configuration directories
are searched for a matching file and the file found that has the
highest priority is executed. If the argument is a path, that file
is used directly without searching the configuration directories
for any other matching file.
System services (systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service,
systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev-early.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 $SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
below).
The following commands are understood:
--create
If this command is passed, all files and directories marked
with f, F, w, d, D, v, p, L, c, b, m in the configuration
files are created or written to. Files and directories marked
with z, Z, t, T, a, and A have their ownership, access mode
and security labels set.
--clean
If this command is passed, all files and directories with an
age parameter configured will be cleaned up.
--remove
If this command is passed, the contents of directories marked
with D or R, and files or directories themselves marked with r
or R are removed unless an exclusive or shared BSD lock is
taken on them (see flock(2)).
--purge
If this option is passed, all files and directories declared
for creation and marked with the "$" character by the
tmpfiles.d/ files specified on the command line will be
deleted. Specifically, this acts on all files and directories
marked with f, F, d, D, v, q, Q, p, L, c, b, C, w, e. If this
switch is used at least one tmpfiles.d/ file (or - for
standard input) must be specified on the command line or the
invocation will be refused, for safety reasons (as otherwise
much of the installed system files might be removed).
The primary usecase for this option is to automatically remove
files and directories that originally have been created on
behalf of an installed package at package removal time.
It is recommended to first run this command in combination
with --dry-run (see below) to verify which files and
directories will be deleted.
Warning! This is usually not the command you want! In most
cases --remove is what you are looking for.
Added in version 256.
--user
Execute "user" configuration, i.e. tmpfiles.d/ files in user
configuration directories.
Added in version 236.
--boot
Also execute lines with an exclamation mark. Lines that are
not safe to be executed on a running system may be marked in
this way. systemd-tmpfiles is executed in early boot with
--boot specified and will execute those lines. When invoked
again later, it should be called without --boot.
Added in version 209.
--graceful
Ignore configuration lines pertaining to unknown users or
groups. This option is intended to be used in early boot
before all users or groups have been created.
Added in version 254.
--dry-run
Process the configuration and print what operations would be
performed, but do not actually change anything in the file
system.
Added in version 256.
--prefix=path
Only apply rules with paths that start with the specified
prefix. This option can be specified multiple times.
Added in version 212.
--exclude-prefix=path
Ignore rules with paths that start with the specified prefix.
This option can be specified multiple times.
Added in version 207.
-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.
Added in version 247.
--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.
Added in version 212.
--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.
Added in version 247.
--image-policy=policy
Takes an image policy string as argument, as per
systemd.image-policy(7). The policy is enforced when operating
on the disk image specified via --image=, see above. If not
specified, defaults to the "*" policy, i.e. all recognized
file systems in the image are used.
--replace=PATH
When this option is given, one or 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.
Added in version 238.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before
each file, the filename is printed as a comment.
--tldr
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Only the
"interesting" parts of the configuration files are printed,
comments and empty lines are skipped. 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
systemd-tmpfiles supports the service credentials logic as
implemented by ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential=
(see systemd.exec(5) for details). The following credentials are
used when passed in:
tmpfiles.extra
The contents of this credential may contain additional lines
to operate on. The credential contents should follow the same
format as any other tmpfiles.d/ drop-in configuration file. If
this credential is passed it is processed after all of the
drop-in files read from the file system. The lines in the
credential can hence augment existing lines of the OS, but not
override them.
Added in version 252.
Note that by default the systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service unit file
(and related unit files) is set up to inherit the "tmpfiles.extra"
credential from the service manager.
$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 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
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
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.
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 [2]).
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 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.
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).
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.
systemd(1), tmpfiles.d(5)
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification
2. It is recommended for other tools to set and check $SUDO_UID
as appropriate, treating it is a common interface.
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 SYSTEMD-TMPFILES(8)
Pages that refer to this page: coredump.conf(5), repart.d(5), systemd.exec(5), tmpfiles.d(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd-coredump(8)
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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. |
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