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d657c51f 1systemd System and Service Manager
31cee6f6 2
31cee6f6 3WEB SITE:
2777a4a3 4 https://systemd.io
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5
6GIT:
eb0914fc 7 git@github.com:systemd/systemd.git
eb0914fc 8 https://github.com/systemd/systemd
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9
10MAILING LIST:
19d9372b 11 https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
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12
13IRC:
fb906b00 14 #systemd on irc.libera.chat
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15
16BUG REPORTS:
eb0914fc 17 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues
31cee6f6 18
2777a4a3 19OLDER DOCUMENTATION:
4445b357 20 https://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
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21 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd
22
31cee6f6 23AUTHOR:
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24 Lennart Poettering
25 Kay Sievers
26 ...and many others
31cee6f6 27
673eab9b 28LICENSE:
7fe57498 29 LGPL-2.1-or-later for all code, exceptions noted in LICENSES/README.md
673eab9b 30
31cee6f6 31REQUIREMENTS:
277f0587 32 Linux kernel ≥ 3.15
ad11dd94 33 ≥ 4.3 for ambient capabilities
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34 ≥ 4.5 for pids controller in cgroup v2
35 ≥ 4.6 for cgroup namespaces
36 ≥ 4.9 for RENAME_NOREPLACE support in vfat
37 ≥ 4.10 for cgroup-bpf egress and ingress hooks
38 ≥ 4.15 for cgroup-bpf device hook and cpu controller in cgroup v2
39 ≥ 4.17 for cgroup-bpf socket address hooks
be6447b4 40 ≥ 4.20 for PSI (used by systemd-oomd)
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41 ≥ 5.3 for bounded loops in BPF program
42 ≥ 5.4 for signed Verity images
43 ≥ 5.7 for BPF links and the BPF LSM hook
44
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45 ⛔ Kernel versions below 3.15 ("minimum baseline") are not supported at
46 all, and are missing required functionality (e.g. CLOCK_BOOTTIME
47 support for timerfd_create()).
4213dd23 48
036b9e7f 49 ⚠️ Kernel versions below 4.15 ("recommended baseline") have significant
4213dd23 50 gaps in functionality and are not recommended for use with this version
036b9e7f 51 of systemd (e.g. lack sufficiently comprehensive and working cgroupv2
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52 support). Taint flag 'old-kernel' will be set. systemd will most likely
53 still function, but upstream support and testing are limited.
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54
55 Kernel Config Options:
713bc0cf 56 CONFIG_DEVTMPFS
d28315e4 57 CONFIG_CGROUPS (it is OK to disable all controllers)
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58 CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER
59 CONFIG_SIGNALFD
60 CONFIG_TIMERFD
61 CONFIG_EPOLL
8d186a35 62 CONFIG_UNIX (it requires CONFIG_NET, but every other flag in it is not necessary)
713bc0cf 63 CONFIG_SYSFS
06d461ee 64 CONFIG_PROC_FS
5d31974e 65 CONFIG_FHANDLE (libudev, mount and bind mount handling)
713bc0cf 66
be2ea723 67 udev will fail to work with the legacy sysfs layout:
f28cbd03 68 CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED=n
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69
70 Legacy hotplug slows down the system and confuses udev:
71 CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER_PATH=""
72
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73 Userspace firmware loading is not supported and should be disabled in
74 the kernel:
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75 CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n
76
77 Some udev rules and virtualization detection relies on it:
78 CONFIG_DMIID
79
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80 Support for some SCSI devices serial number retrieval, to create
81 additional symlinks in /dev/disk/ and /dev/tape:
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82 CONFIG_BLK_DEV_BSG
83
45a582d5 84 Required for PrivateNetwork= in service units:
13468826 85 CONFIG_NET_NS
b52a4a3b 86 Note that systemd-localed.service and other systemd units use
45a582d5 87 PrivateNetwork so this is effectively required.
13468826 88
0ca48bb0 89 Required for PrivateUsers= in service units:
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90 CONFIG_USER_NS
91
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92 Optional but strongly recommended:
93 CONFIG_IPV6
0c651d32 94 CONFIG_AUTOFS_FS
713bc0cf 95 CONFIG_TMPFS_XATTR
0ceced3d 96 CONFIG_{TMPFS,EXT4_FS,XFS,BTRFS_FS,...}_POSIX_ACL
f28cbd03 97 CONFIG_SECCOMP
fd74fa79 98 CONFIG_SECCOMP_FILTER (required for seccomp support)
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99 CONFIG_KCMP (for the kcmp() syscall, used to be under
100 CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE before ~5.12)
713bc0cf 101
12801295 102 Required for CPUShares= in resource control unit settings:
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103 CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED
104 CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
105
12801295 106 Required for CPUQuota= in resource control unit settings:
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107 CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH
108
c3080258 109 Required for IPAddressDeny=, IPAddressAllow=, IPIngressFilterPath=,
12801295 110 IPEgressFilterPath= in resource control unit settings unit settings:
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111 CONFIG_BPF
112 CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
113 CONFIG_BPF_JIT
114 CONFIG_HAVE_EBPF_JIT
115 CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF
116
43689840 117 Required for SocketBind{Allow|Deny}=, RestrictNetworkInterfaces= in
12801295 118 resource control unit settings:
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119 CONFIG_BPF
120 CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
121 CONFIG_BPF_JIT
122 CONFIG_HAVE_EBPF_JIT
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123 CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF
124
f28cbd03 125 For UEFI systems:
f33016ff 126 CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS
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127 CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION
128
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129 Required for signed Verity images support:
130 CONFIG_DM_VERITY_VERIFY_ROOTHASH_SIG
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131 Required to verify signed Verity images using keys enrolled in the MoK
132 (Machine-Owner Key) keyring:
133 CONFIG_DM_VERITY_VERIFY_ROOTHASH_SIG_SECONDARY_KEYRING
134 CONFIG_IMA_ARCH_POLICY
135 CONFIG_INTEGRITY_MACHINE_KEYRING
c2923fdc 136
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137 Required for reading credentials from SMBIOS:
138 CONFIG_DMI
139 CONFIG_DMI_SYSFS
140
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141 Required for RestrictFileSystems= in service units:
142 CONFIG_BPF
143 CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
144 CONFIG_BPF_LSM
145 CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF
146 CONFIG_LSM="...,bpf" or kernel booted with lsm="...,bpf".
147
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148 We recommend to turn off Real-Time group scheduling in the kernel when
149 using systemd. RT group scheduling effectively makes RT scheduling
150 unavailable for most userspace, since it requires explicit assignment of
151 RT budgets to each unit whose processes making use of RT. As there's no
152 sensible way to assign these budgets automatically this cannot really be
153 fixed, and it's best to disable group scheduling hence:
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154 CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED=n
155
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156 It's a good idea to disable the implicit creation of networking bonding
157 devices by the kernel networking bonding module, so that the
158 automatically created "bond0" interface doesn't conflict with any such
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159 device created by systemd-networkd (or other tools). Ideally there would
160 be a kernel compile-time option for this, but there currently isn't. The
161 next best thing is to make this change through a modprobe.d drop-in.
162 This is shipped by default, see modprobe.d/systemd.conf.
f5a93d5d 163
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164 Required for systemd-nspawn:
165 CONFIG_DEVPTS_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES or Linux kernel >= 4.7
166
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167 Required for systemd-oomd:
168 CONFIG_PSI
169
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170 Note that kernel auditing is broken when used with systemd's container
171 code. When using systemd in conjunction with containers, please make
172 sure to either turn off auditing at runtime using the kernel command
173 line option "audit=0", or turn it off at kernel compile time using:
77b6e194 174 CONFIG_AUDIT=n
dbf75097 175
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176 If systemd is compiled with libseccomp support on architectures which do
177 not use socketcall() and where seccomp is supported (this effectively
178 means x86-64 and ARM, but excludes 32-bit x86!), then nspawn will now
179 install a work-around seccomp filter that makes containers boot even
180 with audit being enabled. This works correctly only on kernels 3.14 and
181 newer though. TL;DR: turn audit off, still.
77b6e194 182
3dd26f3e 183 glibc >= 2.16
3ede835a 184 libcap
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185 libmount >= 2.30 (from util-linux)
186 (util-linux *must* be built without --enable-libmount-support-mtab)
6abfd303 187 libseccomp >= 2.3.1 (optional)
d47f6ca5 188 libblkid >= 2.24 (from util-linux) (optional)
a18535d9 189 libkmod >= 15 (optional)
3ede835a 190 PAM >= 1.1.2 (optional)
c2923fdc 191 libcryptsetup (optional), >= 2.3.0 required for signed Verity images support
3ede835a 192 libaudit (optional)
19d5d4cb 193 libacl (optional)
afd22e32 194 libbpf >= 0.1.0 (optional)
baec7d78 195 libfdisk >= 2.32 (from util-linux) (optional)
3ede835a 196 libselinux (optional)
19d5d4cb 197 liblzma (optional)
e0a1d4b0 198 liblz4 >= 1.3.0 / 130 (optional)
ef5924aa 199 libzstd >= 1.4.0 (optional)
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200 libgcrypt (optional)
201 libqrencode (optional)
202 libmicrohttpd (optional)
87057e24 203 libidn2 or libidn (optional)
38e053c5 204 gnutls >= 3.1.4 (optional, >= 3.6.0 is required to support DNS-over-TLS with gnutls)
096cbdce 205 openssl >= 1.1.0 (optional, required to support DNS-over-TLS with openssl)
5b244719 206 elfutils >= 158 (optional)
d79a2f5f 207 polkit (optional)
781748af 208 tzdata >= 2014f (optional)
72cdb3e7 209 pkg-config
8f968c73 210 gperf
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211 docbook-xsl (optional, required for documentation)
212 xsltproc (optional, required for documentation)
7c0d7913 213 python >= 3.7 (required by meson too, >= 3.9 is required for ukify)
e0698c66 214 python-jinja2
7c0d7913 215 python-pefile (optional, required for ukify)
72cdb3e7 216 python-lxml (optional, required to build the indices)
7c0d7913 217 pyelftools (optional, required for systemd-boot)
9ce707d6 218 meson >= 0.60.0
40f116f5 219 ninja
bab5d847 220 gcc >= 4.7
221 awk, sed, grep, and similar tools
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222 clang >= 10.0, llvm >= 10.0 (optional, required to build BPF programs
223 from source code in C)
2cc86f09 224
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225 During runtime, you need the following additional
226 dependencies:
2cc86f09 227
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228 util-linux >= v2.27.1 required (including but not limited to: mount,
229 umount, swapon, swapoff, sulogin,
230 agetty, fsck)
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231 dbus >= 1.4.0 (strictly speaking optional, but recommended)
232 NOTE: If using dbus < 1.9.18, you should override the default
233 policy directory (--with-dbuspolicydir=/etc/dbus-1/system.d).
d35f51ea 234 polkit (optional)
3ede835a 235
3e609a8a 236 To build in directory build/:
e8a68817 237 meson setup build/ && ninja -C build/
3e609a8a 238
5238e957 239 Any configuration options can be specified as -Darg=value... arguments
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240 to meson. After the build directory is initially configured, meson will
241 refuse to run again, and options must be changed with:
5adfb06d 242 meson configure -Darg=value build/
243 meson configure without any arguments will print out available options and
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244 their current values.
245
246 Useful commands:
e8a68817 247 ninja -C build -v some/target
8b08be40 248 meson test -C build/
ead7e86d 249 sudo meson install -C build/ --no-rebuild
8b08be40 250 DESTDIR=... meson install -C build/
3e609a8a 251
72cdb3e7 252 A tarball can be created with:
3983fc02 253 v=250 && git archive --prefix=systemd-$v/ v$v | zstd >systemd-$v.tar.zstd
82627069 254
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255 When systemd-hostnamed is used, it is strongly recommended to install
256 nss-myhostname to ensure that, in a world of dynamically changing
257 hostnames, the hostname stays resolvable under all circumstances. In
258 fact, systemd-hostnamed will warn if nss-myhostname is not installed.
fff2e5b5 259
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260 nss-systemd must be enabled on systemd systems, as that's required for
261 DynamicUser= to work. Note that we ship services out-of-the-box that
262 make use of DynamicUser= now, hence enabling nss-systemd is not
263 optional.
264
b0d3095f 265 Note that the build prefix for systemd must be /usr/. (Moreover, packages
12801295 266 systemd relies on — such as D-Bus — really should use the same prefix,
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267 otherwise you are on your own.) Split-usr and unmerged-usr systems are no
268 longer supported, and moving everything under /usr/ is required. Systems
269 with a separate /usr/ partition must mount it before transitioning into it
270 (i.e.: from the initrd). For more information see:
271 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken
272 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge
01c8938e 273
a2fc3d87 274 Additional packages are necessary to run some tests:
a2fc3d87 275 - nc (used by test/TEST-12-ISSUE-3171)
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276 - python (test-udev which is installed is in python)
277 - python-pyparsing
278 - python-evdev (used by hwdb parsing tests)
a2fc3d87 279 - strace (used by test/test-functions)
e94681ad 280 - capsh (optional, used by test-execute)
a2fc3d87 281
5810c204 282POLICY FOR SUPPORT OF DISTRIBUTIONS AND ARCHITECTURES:
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283 systemd main branch and latest major or stable releases are generally
284 expected to compile on current versions of popular distributions (at
285 least all non-EOL versions of Fedora, Debian unstable/testing/stable,
286 latest Ubuntu LTS and non-LTS releases, openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap,
b16e93d7 287 CentOS Stream 8 and 9, up-to-date Arch, etc.) We will generally
5810c204 288 attempt to support also other non-EOL versions of various distros.
522c108d 289 Features which would break compilation on slightly older distributions
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290 will only be introduced if there are significant reasons for this
291 (i.e. supporting them interferes with development or requires too many
292 resources to support). In some cases backports of specific libraries or
293 tools might be required.
294
522c108d 295 The policy is similar for architecture support. systemd is regularly
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296 tested on popular architectures (currently amd64, i386, arm64, ppc64el,
297 and s390x), but should compile and work also on other architectures, for
298 which support has been added. systemd will emit warnings when
299 architecture-specific constants are not defined.
300
522c108d 301STATIC COMPILATION AND "STANDALONE" BINARIES:
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302 systemd provides a public shared libraries libsystemd.so and
303 libudev.so. The latter is deprecated, and the sd-device APIs in
304 libsystemd should be used instead for new code. In addition, systemd is
305 built with a private shared library, libsystemd-shared-<suffix>.so,
306 that also includes the libsystemd code, and by default most systemd
307 binaries are linked to it. Using shared libraries saves disk space and
308 memory at runtime, because only one copy of the code is needed.
309
310 It is possible to build static versions of systemd public shared
311 libraries (via the configuration options '-Dstatic-libsystemd' and
312 '-Dstatic-libudev'). This allows the libsystemd and libudev code to be
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313 linked statically into programs. Note that mixing & matching different
314 versions of libsystemd and systemd is generally not recommended, since
315 various of its APIs wrap internal state and protocols of systemd
316 (e.g. logind and udev databases), which are not considered
317 stable. Hence, using static libraries is not recommended since it
318 generally means that version of the static libsystemd linked into
319 applications and the host systemd are not in sync, and will thus create
320 compatibility problems.
321
322 In addition, it is possible to disable the use of
323 libsystemd-shared-<suffix>.so for various components (via the
324 configuration options '-Dlink-*-shared'). In this mode, the libsystemd
325 and libsystemd-shared code is linked statically into selected
326 binaries. This option is intended for systems where some of the
327 components are intended to be delivered independently of the main
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328 systemd package. Finally, some binaries can be compiled in a second
329 version (via the configuration option '-Dstandalone-binaries'). The
330 version suffixed with ".standalone" has the libsystemd and
331 libsystemd-shared code linked statically. Those binaries are intended
332 as replacements to be used in limited installations where the full
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333 systemd suite is not installed. Yet another option is to rebuild
334 systemd with a different '-Dshared-lib-tag' setting, allowing different
335 systemd binaries to be linked to instances of the private shared
336 library that can be installed in parallel.
337
338 Again: Using the default shared linking is recommended, building static
339 or "standalone" versions is not. Mixing versions of systemd components
340 that would normally be built and used together (in particular various
341 daemons and the manager) is not recommended: we do not test such
342 combinations upstream and cannot provide support. Distributors making
343 use of those options are responsible if things do not work as expected.
522c108d 344
a24c64f0 345USERS AND GROUPS:
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346 Default udev rules use the following standard system group names, which
347 need to be resolvable by getgrnam() at any time, even in the very early
348 boot stages, where no other databases and network are available:
37495eed 349
2422bd21 350 audio, cdrom, dialout, disk, input, kmem, kvm, lp, render, tape, tty, video
37c0e8f3 351
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352 During runtime, the journal daemon requires the "systemd-journal" system
353 group to exist. New journal files will be readable by this group (but
354 not writable), which may be used to grant specific users read access. In
355 addition, system groups "wheel" and "adm" will be given read-only access
7d33146d 356 to journal files using systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service.
a24c64f0 357
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358 The journal remote daemon requires the "systemd-journal-remote" system
359 user and group to exist. During execution this network facing service
360 will drop privileges and assume this uid/gid for security reasons.
37495eed 361
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362 Similarly, the network management daemon requires the "systemd-network"
363 system user and group to exist.
323a2f0b 364
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365 Similarly, the name resolution daemon requires the "systemd-resolve"
366 system user and group to exist.
323a2f0b 367
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368 Similarly, the coredump support requires the "systemd-coredump" system
369 user and group to exist.
888e378d 370
c87abcfa 371GLIBC NSS:
409093fe 372 systemd ships with four glibc NSS modules:
a4a79605 373
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374 nss-myhostname resolves the local hostname to locally configured IP
375 addresses, as well as "localhost" to 127.0.0.1/::1.
a4a79605 376
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377 nss-resolve enables DNS resolution via the systemd-resolved DNS/LLMNR
378 caching stub resolver "systemd-resolved".
a4a79605 379
409093fe 380 nss-mymachines enables resolution of all local containers registered
38ccb557 381 with machined to their respective IP addresses.
a4a79605 382
38ccb557 383 nss-systemd enables resolution of users/group registered via the
1d10005b 384 User/Group Record Lookup API (https://systemd.io/USER_GROUP_API),
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385 including all dynamically allocated service users. (See the
386 DynamicUser= setting in unit files.)
a4a79605 387
409093fe 388 To make use of these NSS modules, please add them to the "hosts:",
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389 "passwd:", "group:", "shadow:" and "gshadow:" lines in
390 /etc/nsswitch.conf.
a4a79605 391
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392 The four modules should be used in the following order:
393
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394 passwd: files systemd
395 group: files [SUCCESS=merge] systemd
396 shadow: files systemd
397 gshadow: files systemd
398 hosts: mymachines resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] files myhostname dns
a4a79605 399
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400SYSV INIT.D SCRIPTS:
401 When calling "systemctl enable/disable/is-enabled" on a unit which is a
402 SysV init.d script, it calls /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install;
403 this needs to translate the action into the distribution specific
404 mechanism such as chkconfig or update-rc.d. Packagers need to provide
405 this script if you need this functionality (you don't if you disabled
406 SysV init support).
407
408 Please see src/systemctl/systemd-sysv-install.SKELETON for how this
409 needs to look like, and provide an implementation at the marked places.
410
88a3af94 411WARNINGS and TAINT FLAGS:
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412 systemd requires that the /run mount point exists. systemd also
413 requires that /var/run is a symlink to /run. Taint flag 'var-run-bad'
414 will be set when this condition is detected.
415
416 Systemd will also warn when the cgroup support is unavailable in the
417 kernel (taint flag 'cgroups-missing'), the system is using the old
418 cgroup hierarchy (taint flag 'cgroupsv1'), the hardware clock is
419 running in non-UTC mode (taint flag 'local-hwclock'), the kernel
420 overflow UID or GID are not 65534 (taint flags 'overflowuid-not-65534'
421 and 'overflowgid-not-65534'), the UID or GID range assigned to the
422 running systemd instance covers less than 0…65534 (taint flags
423 'short-uid-range' and 'short-gid-range').
424
425 Taint conditions are logged during boot, but may also be checked at any
426 time with:
427
428 busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Tainted
429
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430 See org.freedesktop.systemd1(5) for more information.
431
88a3af94 432VALGRIND:
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433 To run systemd under valgrind, compile systemd with the valgrind
434 development headers available (i.e. valgrind-devel or equivalent).
435 Otherwise, false positives will be triggered by code which violates
436 some rules but is actually safe. Note that valgrind generates nice
437 output only on exit(), hence on shutdown we don't execve()
438 systemd-shutdown.
2b671e95 439
ba9e3fc4 440STABLE BRANCHES AND BACKPORTS:
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441 Stable branches with backported patches are available in the
442 systemd-stable repo at https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable.
443
444 Stable branches are started for certain releases of systemd and named
445 after them, e.g. v238-stable. Stable branches are managed by
446 distribution maintainers on an as needed basis. See
a25d9395 447 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Backports for some
bfeb370a 448 more information and examples.