unitfile_exec — Execution environment configuration
name.service ,
name.socket ,
name.mount ,
name.swap
Unit configuration files for services, sockets, mount points, and swap devices share a subset of configuration options which define the execution environment of spawned processes.
This man page lists the configuration options shared by these four unit types. See unitfile(5) for the common options of all unit configuration files, and unitfile_service(5) , unitfile_socket(5) , unitfile_swap(5) , and unitfile_mount(5) for more information on the specific unit configuration files. The execution specific configuration options are configured in the [Service], [Socket], [Mount], or [Swap] sections, depending on the unit type.
WorkingDirectory=
Takes an absolute directory path. Sets the working directory for executed processes. If not set, defaults to the root directory when systemd is running as a system instance and the respective user's home directory if run as user.
RootDirectory=
Takes an absolute directory path. Sets the root directory for
executed processes, with the chroot(2) system call. If this is used, it must be ensured
that the process and all its auxiliary files are available in the
chroot() jail.
User=
,
Group=
Sets the Unix user or group that the processes are executed as, respectively. Takes a single user or group name or ID as argument. If no group is set, the default group of the user is chosen.
SupplementaryGroups=
Sets the supplementary Unix groups the processes are executed as. This takes a space-separated list of group names or IDs. This option may be specified more than once in which case all listed groups are set as supplementary groups. When the empty string is assigned the list of supplementary groups is reset, and all assignments prior to this one will have no effect. In any way, this option does not override, but extends the list of supplementary groups configured in the system group database for the user.
Nice=
Sets the default nice level (scheduling priority) for executed processes. Takes an integer between -20 (highest priority) and 19 (lowest priority). See setpriority(2) for details.
OOMScoreAdjust=
Sets the adjustment level for the Out-Of-Memory killer for executed processes. Takes an integer between -1000 (to disable OOM killing for this process) and 1000 (to make killing of this process under memory pressure very likely). See proc.txt for details.
IOSchedulingClass=
Sets the IO scheduling class for executed processes. Takes an
integer between 0 and 3 or one of the strings none
, realtime , best-effort or
idle . See ioprio_set(2) for details.
IOSchedulingPriority=
Sets the IO scheduling priority for executed processes. Takes an integer between 0 (highest priority) and 7 (lowest priority). The available priorities depend on the selected IO scheduling class (see above). See ioprio_set(2) for details.
CPUSchedulingPolicy=
Sets the CPU scheduling policy for executed processes. Takes
one of other , batch ,
idle , fifo or rr
. See sched_setscheduler(2) for details.
CPUSchedulingPriority=
Sets the CPU scheduling priority for executed processes. The available priority range depends on the selected CPU scheduling policy (see above). For real-time scheduling policies an integer between 1 (lowest priority) and 99 (highest priority) can be used. See sched_setscheduler(2) for details.
CPUSchedulingResetOnFork=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, elevated CPU scheduling priorities and policies will be reset when the executed processes fork, and can hence not leak into child processes. See sched_setscheduler(2) for details. Defaults to false.
CPUAffinity=
Controls the CPU affinity of the executed processes. Takes a space-separated list of CPU indices. This option may be specified more than once in which case the specificed CPU affinity masks are merged. If the empty string is assigned, the mask is reset, all assignments prior to this will have no effect. See sched_setaffinity(2) for details.
UMask=
Controls the file mode creation mask. Takes an access mode in octal notation. See umask(2) for details. Defaults to 0022.
Environment=
Sets environment variables for executed processes. Takes a space-separated list of variable assignments. This option may be specified more than once in which case all listed variables will be set. If the same variable is set twice, the later setting will override the earlier setting. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list of environment variables is reset, all prior assignments have no effect. Variable expansion is not performed inside the strings, however, specifier expansion is possible. The $ character has no special meaning. If you need to assign a value containing spaces to a variable, use double quotes (") for the assignment.
Example:
Environment="VAR1=word1 word2" VAR2=word3 "VAR3=$word 5 6"
gives three variables VAR1 ,
VAR2 , VAR3 with the values
word1 word2 , word3 ,
$word 5 6 .
See environ(7) for details about environment variables.
EnvironmentFile=
Similar to Environment= but reads the
environment variables from a text file. The text file should contain
new-line-separated variable assignments. Empty lines and lines
starting with ; or # will be ignored, which may be used for
commenting. A line ending with a backslash will be concatenated with
the following one, allowing multiline variable definitions. The
parser strips leading and trailing whitespace from the values of
assignments, unless you use double quotes (").
The argument passed should be an absolute filename or wildcard
expression, optionally prefixed with - , which
indicates that if the file does not exist, it will not be read and
no error or warning message is logged. This option may be specified
more than once in which case all specified files are read. If the
empty string is assigned to this option, the list of file to read is
reset, all prior assignments have no effect.
The files listed with this directive will be read shortly
before the process is executed (more specifically, this means after
all processes from a previous unit state terminated. This means you
can generate these files in one unit state, and read it with this
option in the next). Settings from these files override settings
made with Environment= . If the same variable is
set twice from these files, the files will be read in the order they
are specified and the later setting will override the earlier
setting.
StandardInput=
Controls where file descriptor 0 (STDIN) of the executed
processes is connected to. Takes one of null ,
tty , tty-force ,
tty-fail or socket . If
null is selected, standard input will be connected
to /dev/null , i.e. all read attempts by the
process will result in immediate EOF. If tty is
selected, standard input is connected to a TTY (as configured by
TTYPath= , see below) and the executed process
becomes the controlling process of the terminal. If the terminal is
already being controlled by another process, the executed process
waits until the current controlling process releases the terminal.
tty-force is similar to tty , but
the executed process is forcefully and immediately made the
controlling process of the terminal, potentially removing previous
controlling processes from the terminal. tty-fail
is similar to tty but if the terminal already has a
controlling process start-up of the executed process fails. The
socket option is only valid in socket-activated
services, and only when the socket configuration file (see
unitfile_socket(5) for details) specifies a single socket only. If
this option is set, standard input will be connected to the socket
the service was activated from, which is primarily useful for
compatibility with daemons designed for use with the traditional
inetd(8) daemon. This setting defaults to
null .
StandardOutput=
Controls where file descriptor 1 (STDOUT) of the executed
processes is connected to. Takes one of inherit ,
null , tty ,
syslog , kmsg ,
journal , syslog+console ,
kmsg+console , journal+console or
socket . If set to inherit , the
file descriptor of standard input is duplicated for standard output.
If set to null , standard output will be connected
to /dev/null , i.e. everything written to it
will be lost. If set to tty , standard output will
be connected to a tty (as configured via TTYPath=
, see below). If the TTY is used for output only, the executed
process will not become the controlling process of the terminal, and
will not fail or wait for other processes to release the terminal.
syslog connects standard output to the
syslog(3) system syslog service. kmsg
connects it with the kernel log buffer which is accessible via
dmesg(1) . journal connects it with the
journal which is accessible via journalctl(1) (Note that everything that is written to syslog or
kmsg is implicitly stored in the journal as well, those options are
hence supersets of this one). syslog+console ,
journal+console and kmsg+console
work similarly but copy the output to the system console as well.
socket connects standard output to a socket from
socket activation, semantics are similar to the respective option of
StandardInput= . This setting defaults to the
value set with DefaultStandardOutput= in
systemd-system.conf(5) , which defaults to journal
.
StandardError=
Controls where file descriptor 2 (STDERR) of the executed
processes is connected to. The available options are identical to
those of StandardOutput= , with one exception: if
set to inherit the file descriptor used for
standard output is duplicated for standard error. This setting
defaults to the value set with
DefaultStandardError= in systemd-system.conf(5) , which defaults to inherit
.
TTYPath=
Sets the terminal device node to use if standard input,
output, or error are connected to a TTY (see above). Defaults to
/dev/console .
TTYReset=
Reset the terminal device specified with
TTYPath= before and after execution. Defaults to
no .
TTYVHangup=
Disconnect all clients which have opened the terminal device
specified with TTYPath= before and after
execution. Defaults to no .
TTYVTDisallocate=
If the terminal device specified with
TTYPath= is a virtual console terminal, try to
deallocate the TTY before and after execution. This ensures that the
screen and scrollback buffer is cleared. Defaults to
no .
SyslogIdentifier=
Sets the process name to prefix log lines sent to syslog or
the kernel log buffer with. If not set, defaults to the process name
of the executed process. This option is only useful when
StandardOutput= or
StandardError= are set to syslog
or kmsg .
SyslogFacility=
Sets the syslog facility to use when logging to syslog. One of
kern , user ,
mail , daemon ,
auth , syslog ,
lpr , news , uucp
, cron , authpriv ,
ftp , local0 ,
local1 , local2 ,
local3 , local4 ,
local5 , local6 or
local7 . See syslog(3) for details. This option is only useful when
StandardOutput= or
StandardError= are set to syslog
. Defaults to daemon .
SyslogLevel=
Default syslog level to use when logging to syslog or the
kernel log buffer. One of emerg ,
alert , crit ,
err , warning ,
notice , info ,
debug . See syslog(3) for details. This option is only useful when
StandardOutput= or
StandardError= are set to syslog
or kmsg . Note that individual lines output by the
daemon might be prefixed with a different log level which can be
used to override the default log level specified here. The
interpretation of these prefixes may be disabled with
SyslogLevelPrefix= , see below. For details see
sd-daemon(3) . Defaults to info .
SyslogLevelPrefix=
Takes a boolean argument. If true and
StandardOutput= or
StandardError= are set to syslog
, kmsg or journal , log lines
written by the executed process that are prefixed with a log level
will be passed on to syslog with this log level set but the prefix
removed. If set to false, the interpretation of these prefixes is
disabled and the logged lines are passed on as-is. For details about
this prefixing see sd-daemon(3) . Defaults to true.
TimerSlackNSec=
Sets the timer slack in nanoseconds for the executed processes. The timer slack controls the accuracy of wake-ups triggered by timers. See prctl(2) for more information. Note that in contrast to most other time span definitions this parameter takes an integer value in nano-seconds if no unit is specified. The usual time units are understood too.
LimitCPU=
,
LimitFSIZE=
,
LimitDATA=
,
LimitSTACK=
,
LimitCORE=
,
LimitRSS=
,
LimitNOFILE=
,
LimitAS=
,
LimitNPROC=
,
LimitMEMLOCK=
,
LimitLOCKS=
,
LimitSIGPENDING=
,
LimitMSGQUEUE=
,
LimitNICE=
,
LimitRTPRIO=
,
LimitRTTIME=
These settings control various resource limits for executed
processes. See setrlimit(2) for details. Use the string
infinity to configure no limit on a specific
resource.
PAMName=
Sets the PAM service name to set up a session as. If set, the
executed process will be registered as a PAM session under the
specified service name. This is only useful in conjunction with the
User= setting. If not set, no PAM session will be
opened for the executed processes. See pam(8) for details.
CapabilityBoundingSet=
Controls which capabilities to include in the capability
bounding set for the executed process. See capabilities(7) for details. Takes a whitespace-separated list of
capability names as read by cap_from_name(3) , e.g. CAP_SYS_ADMIN ,
CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE ,
CAP_SYS_PTRACE . Capabilities listed will be
included in the bounding set, all others are removed. If the list of
capabilities is prefixed with ~ , all but the
listed capabilities will be included, the effect of the assignment
inverted. Note that this option also affects the respective
capabilities in the effective, permitted and inheritable capability
sets, on top of what Capabilities= does. If this
option is not used, the capability bounding set is not modified on
process execution, hence no limits on the capabilities of the
process are enforced. This option may appear more than once in which
case the bounding sets are merged. If the empty string is assigned
to this option, the bounding set is reset to the empty capability
set, and all prior settings have no effect. If set to
~ (without any further argument), the bounding
set is reset to the full set of available capabilities, also undoing
any previous settings.
SecureBits=
Controls the secure bits set for the executed process. See
capabilities(7) for details. Takes a list of strings:
keep-caps , keep-caps-locked ,
no-setuid-fixup ,
no-setuid-fixup-locked , noroot
and/or noroot-locked . This option may appear more
than once in which case the secure bits are ORed. If the empty
string is assigned to this option, the bits are reset to 0.
Capabilities=
Controls the capabilities(7) set for the executed process. Take a capability
string describing the effective, permitted and inherited capability
sets as documented in cap_from_text(3) . Note that these capability sets are usually
influenced by the capabilities attached to the executed file. Due to
that CapabilityBoundingSet= is probably the much
more useful setting.
ReadWriteDirectories=
,
ReadOnlyDirectories=
,
InaccessibleDirectories=
Sets up a new file system namespace for executed processes.
These options may be used to limit access a process might have to
the main file system hierarchy. Each setting takes a space-separated
list of absolute directory paths. Directories listed in
ReadWriteDirectories= are accessible from within
the namespace with the same access rights as from outside.
Directories listed in ReadOnlyDirectories= are
accessible for reading only, writing will be refused even if the
usual file access controls would permit this. Directories listed in
InaccessibleDirectories= will be made
inaccessible for processes inside the namespace. Note that
restricting access with these options does not extend to submounts
of a directory. You must list submounts separately in these settings
to ensure the same limited access. These options may be specified
more than once in which case all directories listed will have
limited access from within the namespace. If the empty string is
assigned to this option, the specific list is reset, and all prior
assignments have no effect.
Paths in ReadOnlyDirectories= and
InaccessibleDirectories= may be prefixed with
- , in which case they will be ignored when they
do not exist.
PrivateTmp=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, sets up a new file system
namespace for the executed processes and mounts private
/tmp and /var/tmp
directories inside it, that are not shared by processes outside of
the namespace. This is useful to secure access to temporary files of
the process, but makes sharing between processes via
/tmp or /var/tmp
impossible. All temporary data created by service will be removed
after service is stopped. Defaults to false.
PrivateNetwork=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, sets up a new network
namespace for the executed processes and configures only the
loopback network device lo inside it. No other
network devices will be available to the executed process. This is
useful to securely turn off network access by the executed process.
Defaults to false.
MountFlags=
Takes a mount propagation flag: shared ,
slave or private , which control
whether the file system namespace set up for this unit's processes
will receive or propagate new mounts. See mount(2) for details. Default to shared
.
UtmpIdentifier=
Takes a four character identifier string for an utmp/wtmp entry for this service. This should only be set for services such as getty implementations where utmp/wtmp entries must be created and cleared before and after execution. If the configured string is longer than four characters, it is truncated and the terminal four characters are used. This setting interprets %I style string replacements. This setting is unset by default, i.e. no utmp/wtmp entries are created or cleaned up for this service.
IgnoreSIGPIPE=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, causes
SIGPIPE to be ignored in the executed process.
Defaults to true because SIGPIPE generally is
useful only in shell pipelines.
NoNewPrivileges=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, ensures that the service process and all its children can never gain new privileges. This option is more powerful than the respective secure bits flags (see above), as it also prohibits UID changes of any kind. This is the simplest, most effective way to ensure that a process and its children can never elevate privileges again.
SystemCallFilter=
Takes a space-separated list of system call names. If this
setting is used, all system calls executed by the unit process
except for the listed ones will result in immediate process
termination with the SIGSYS signal
(whitelisting). If the first character of the list is
~ , the effect is inverted: only the listed
system calls will result in immediate process termination
(blacklisting). If this option is used,
NoNewPrivileges=yes is implied. This feature
makes use of the Secure Computing Mode 2 interfaces of the kernel
('seccomp filtering') and is useful for enforcing a minimal
sandboxing environment. Note that the execve ,
rt_sigreturn , sigreturn ,
exit_group , exit system
calls are implicitly whitelisted and do not need to be listed
explicitly. This option may be specified more than once in which
case the filter masks are merged. If the empty string is assigned,
the filter is reset, all prior assignments will have no
effect.
Processes started by the system are executed in a clean environment in which select variables listed below are set. System processes started by systemd do not inherit variables from PID 1, but processes started by user systemd instances inherit all environment variables from the user systemd instance.
$PATH
Colon-separated list of directiories to use when launching
executables. Systemd uses a fixed value of
/usr/local/sbin :
/usr/local/bin : /usr/sbin
: /usr/bin : /sbin :
/bin .
$LANG
Locale. Can be set in locale.conf(5) or on the kernel command line (see systemd(1) and kernel-command-line(7) ).
$USER
,
$LOGNAME
,
$HOME
,
$SHELL
User name (twice), home directory, and the login shell. Set
for the units which have User= set, which
includes user systemd instances. See
passwd(5) .
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
The directory for volatile state. Set for the user systemd instance, and also in user sessions. See pam_systemd(8) .
$XDG_SESSION_ID
,
$XDG_SEAT
,
$XDG_VTNR
The identifier of the session, and the seat name, and virtual
terminal of the session. Set by pam_systemd(8) for login sessions. $XDG_SEAT
and $XDG_VTNR will be only set when attached to a
seat and a tty.
$MAINPID
The PID of the units main process if it is known. This is only
set for control processes as invoked by
ExecReload= and similar.
$MANAGERPID
The PID of the user systemd instance, set for processes spawned by it.
$LISTEN_FDS
,
$LISTEN_PID
Information about file descriptors passed to a service for socket activation. See sd_listen_fds(3) .
$TERM
Terminal type, set only for units connected to a terminal (
StandardInput=tty ,
StandardOutput=tty , or
StandardError=tty ). See termcap(5) .
Additional variables may be configured by the following means: for
processes spawned in specific units, use the
Environment= and EnvironmentFile=
options above; to specify variables globally, use
DefaultEnvironment= (see systemd-system.conf(5) ) or the kernel option
systemd.setenv= (see systemd(1) ). Additional variables may also be set through PAM,
c.f. pam_env(8) .