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 or --wait 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 similar 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.
The following options are understood:
--no-ask-password¶Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
--scope¶Create a transient .scope unit instead of the default transient
.service unit (see above).
--unit=¶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.
-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).
-E NAME=VALUE, --setenv=NAME=VALUE¶Runs the service process with the specified environment variable set.
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.
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.
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 re-open 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 re-opened. To mitigate this use the construct echo "hello" >&2 instead, which is mostly equivalent and avoids this pitfall.
--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.
--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.
--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
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.
-M, --machine=¶Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.
-h, --help¶--version¶All command line arguments after the first non-option argument become part of the command line of the launched process. If a command is run as service unit, the first argument needs to be an absolute program path.
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 BlockIOWeight=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 BlockIOWeight=
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 -- Logs begin at Fri 2014-12-05 19:09:21 KST, end 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 -- Logs begin at Fri 2014-12-05 19:09:21 KST, end 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 /bin/bash as a service
passing its standard input, output and error to the calling TTY.
# systemd-run -t --send-sighup /bin/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