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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
31cee6f6
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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 RestrictFileSystems= in service units:
138 CONFIG_BPF
139 CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
140 CONFIG_BPF_LSM
141 CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF
142 CONFIG_LSM="...,bpf" or kernel booted with lsm="...,bpf".
143
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144 We recommend to turn off Real-Time group scheduling in the kernel when
145 using systemd. RT group scheduling effectively makes RT scheduling
146 unavailable for most userspace, since it requires explicit assignment of
147 RT budgets to each unit whose processes making use of RT. As there's no
148 sensible way to assign these budgets automatically this cannot really be
149 fixed, and it's best to disable group scheduling hence:
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150 CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED=n
151
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152 It's a good idea to disable the implicit creation of networking bonding
153 devices by the kernel networking bonding module, so that the
154 automatically created "bond0" interface doesn't conflict with any such
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155 device created by systemd-networkd (or other tools). Ideally there would
156 be a kernel compile-time option for this, but there currently isn't. The
157 next best thing is to make this change through a modprobe.d drop-in.
158 This is shipped by default, see modprobe.d/systemd.conf.
f5a93d5d 159
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160 Required for systemd-nspawn:
161 CONFIG_DEVPTS_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES or Linux kernel >= 4.7
162
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163 Required for systemd-oomd:
164 CONFIG_PSI
165
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166 Note that kernel auditing is broken when used with systemd's container
167 code. When using systemd in conjunction with containers, please make
168 sure to either turn off auditing at runtime using the kernel command
169 line option "audit=0", or turn it off at kernel compile time using:
77b6e194 170 CONFIG_AUDIT=n
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171 If systemd is compiled with libseccomp support on architectures which do
172 not use socketcall() and where seccomp is supported (this effectively
173 means x86-64 and ARM, but excludes 32-bit x86!), then nspawn will now
174 install a work-around seccomp filter that makes containers boot even
175 with audit being enabled. This works correctly only on kernels 3.14 and
176 newer though. TL;DR: turn audit off, still.
77b6e194 177
3dd26f3e 178 glibc >= 2.16
3ede835a 179 libcap
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180 libmount >= 2.30 (from util-linux)
181 (util-linux *must* be built without --enable-libmount-support-mtab)
6abfd303 182 libseccomp >= 2.3.1 (optional)
d47f6ca5 183 libblkid >= 2.24 (from util-linux) (optional)
a18535d9 184 libkmod >= 15 (optional)
3ede835a 185 PAM >= 1.1.2 (optional)
c2923fdc 186 libcryptsetup (optional), >= 2.3.0 required for signed Verity images support
3ede835a 187 libaudit (optional)
19d5d4cb 188 libacl (optional)
afd22e32 189 libbpf >= 0.1.0 (optional)
baec7d78 190 libfdisk >= 2.32 (from util-linux) (optional)
3ede835a 191 libselinux (optional)
19d5d4cb 192 liblzma (optional)
e0a1d4b0 193 liblz4 >= 1.3.0 / 130 (optional)
ef5924aa 194 libzstd >= 1.4.0 (optional)
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195 libgcrypt (optional)
196 libqrencode (optional)
197 libmicrohttpd (optional)
87057e24 198 libidn2 or libidn (optional)
38e053c5 199 gnutls >= 3.1.4 (optional, >= 3.6.0 is required to support DNS-over-TLS with gnutls)
096cbdce 200 openssl >= 1.1.0 (optional, required to support DNS-over-TLS with openssl)
5b244719 201 elfutils >= 158 (optional)
d79a2f5f 202 polkit (optional)
781748af 203 tzdata >= 2014f (optional)
72cdb3e7 204 pkg-config
8f968c73 205 gperf
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206 docbook-xsl (optional, required for documentation)
207 xsltproc (optional, required for documentation)
7c0d7913 208 python >= 3.7 (required by meson too, >= 3.9 is required for ukify)
e0698c66 209 python-jinja2
7c0d7913 210 python-pefile (optional, required for ukify)
72cdb3e7 211 python-lxml (optional, required to build the indices)
7c0d7913 212 pyelftools (optional, required for systemd-boot)
e8a68817 213 meson >= 0.53.2
40f116f5 214 ninja
bab5d847 215 gcc >= 4.7
216 awk, sed, grep, and similar tools
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217 clang >= 10.0, llvm >= 10.0 (optional, required to build BPF programs
218 from source code in C)
2cc86f09 219
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220 During runtime, you need the following additional
221 dependencies:
2cc86f09 222
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223 util-linux >= v2.27.1 required (including but not limited to: mount,
224 umount, swapon, swapoff, sulogin,
225 agetty, fsck)
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226 dbus >= 1.4.0 (strictly speaking optional, but recommended)
227 NOTE: If using dbus < 1.9.18, you should override the default
228 policy directory (--with-dbuspolicydir=/etc/dbus-1/system.d).
2cc86f09 229 dracut (optional)
d35f51ea 230 polkit (optional)
3ede835a 231
3e609a8a 232 To build in directory build/:
e8a68817 233 meson setup build/ && ninja -C build/
3e609a8a 234
5238e957 235 Any configuration options can be specified as -Darg=value... arguments
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236 to meson. After the build directory is initially configured, meson will
237 refuse to run again, and options must be changed with:
5adfb06d 238 meson configure -Darg=value build/
239 meson configure without any arguments will print out available options and
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240 their current values.
241
242 Useful commands:
e8a68817 243 ninja -C build -v some/target
8b08be40 244 meson test -C build/
ead7e86d 245 sudo meson install -C build/ --no-rebuild
8b08be40 246 DESTDIR=... meson install -C build/
3e609a8a 247
72cdb3e7 248 A tarball can be created with:
3983fc02 249 v=250 && git archive --prefix=systemd-$v/ v$v | zstd >systemd-$v.tar.zstd
82627069 250
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251 When systemd-hostnamed is used, it is strongly recommended to install
252 nss-myhostname to ensure that, in a world of dynamically changing
253 hostnames, the hostname stays resolvable under all circumstances. In
254 fact, systemd-hostnamed will warn if nss-myhostname is not installed.
fff2e5b5 255
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256 nss-systemd must be enabled on systemd systems, as that's required for
257 DynamicUser= to work. Note that we ship services out-of-the-box that
258 make use of DynamicUser= now, hence enabling nss-systemd is not
259 optional.
260
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261 Note that the build prefix for systemd must be /usr. (Moreover, packages
262 systemd relies on — such as D-Bus — really should use the same prefix,
263 otherwise you are on your own.) -Dsplit-usr=false (which is the default
264 and does not need to be specified) is the recommended setting.
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265 -Dsplit-usr=true can be used to give a semblance of support for systems
266 with programs installed split between / and /usr. Moving everything
267 under /usr is strongly encouraged.
01c8938e 268
a2fc3d87 269 Additional packages are necessary to run some tests:
a2fc3d87 270 - nc (used by test/TEST-12-ISSUE-3171)
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271 - python (test-udev which is installed is in python)
272 - python-pyparsing
273 - python-evdev (used by hwdb parsing tests)
a2fc3d87 274 - strace (used by test/test-functions)
e94681ad 275 - capsh (optional, used by test-execute)
a2fc3d87 276
5810c204 277POLICY FOR SUPPORT OF DISTRIBUTIONS AND ARCHITECTURES:
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278 systemd main branch and latest major or stable releases are generally
279 expected to compile on current versions of popular distributions (at
280 least all non-EOL versions of Fedora, Debian unstable/testing/stable,
281 latest Ubuntu LTS and non-LTS releases, openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap,
b16e93d7 282 CentOS Stream 8 and 9, up-to-date Arch, etc.) We will generally
5810c204 283 attempt to support also other non-EOL versions of various distros.
522c108d 284 Features which would break compilation on slightly older distributions
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285 will only be introduced if there are significant reasons for this
286 (i.e. supporting them interferes with development or requires too many
287 resources to support). In some cases backports of specific libraries or
288 tools might be required.
289
522c108d 290 The policy is similar for architecture support. systemd is regularly
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291 tested on popular architectures (currently amd64, i386, arm64, ppc64el,
292 and s390x), but should compile and work also on other architectures, for
293 which support has been added. systemd will emit warnings when
294 architecture-specific constants are not defined.
295
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296STATIC COMPILATION AND "STANDALONE" BINARIES:
297
298 systemd provides a public shared libraries libsystemd.so and
299 libudev.so. The latter is deprecated, and the sd-device APIs in
300 libsystemd should be used instead for new code. In addition, systemd is
301 built with a private shared library, libsystemd-shared-<suffix>.so,
302 that also includes the libsystemd code, and by default most systemd
303 binaries are linked to it. Using shared libraries saves disk space and
304 memory at runtime, because only one copy of the code is needed.
305
306 It is possible to build static versions of systemd public shared
307 libraries (via the configuration options '-Dstatic-libsystemd' and
308 '-Dstatic-libudev'). This allows the libsystemd and libudev code to be
309 linked statically into programs. In addition, it is possible to disable
310 the use of libsystemd-shared-<suffix>.so for various components (via
311 the configuration options '-Dlink-*-shared'). In this mode, the
312 libsystemd and libsystemd-shared code is linked statically into
313 selected binaries. This option is intended for systems where some of
314 the components are intended to be delivered independently of the main
315 systemd package. Finally, some binaries can be compiled in a second
316 version (via the configuration option '-Dstandalone-binaries'). The
317 version suffixed with ".standalone" has the libsystemd and
318 libsystemd-shared code linked statically. Those binaries are intended
319 as replacements to be used in limited installations where the full
320 systemd is not installed. Yet another option is to rebuild systemd with
321 a different '-Dshared-lib-tag' setting, allowing different systemd
322 binaries to be linked to instances of the private shared library that
323 can be installed in parallel.
324
325 Using the default shared linking is recommended. Mixing versions of
326 systemd components that would normally be built and used together (in
327 particular various daemons and the manager) is not recommended: we do
328 not test such combinations upstream and cannot provide support.
329 Distributors making use of those options are responsible if things do
330 not work as expected.
331
a24c64f0 332USERS AND GROUPS:
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333 Default udev rules use the following standard system group names, which
334 need to be resolvable by getgrnam() at any time, even in the very early
335 boot stages, where no other databases and network are available:
37495eed 336
2422bd21 337 audio, cdrom, dialout, disk, input, kmem, kvm, lp, render, tape, tty, video
37c0e8f3 338
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339 During runtime, the journal daemon requires the "systemd-journal" system
340 group to exist. New journal files will be readable by this group (but
341 not writable), which may be used to grant specific users read access. In
342 addition, system groups "wheel" and "adm" will be given read-only access
7d33146d 343 to journal files using systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service.
a24c64f0 344
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345 The journal remote daemon requires the "systemd-journal-remote" system
346 user and group to exist. During execution this network facing service
347 will drop privileges and assume this uid/gid for security reasons.
37495eed 348
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349 Similarly, the network management daemon requires the "systemd-network"
350 system user and group to exist.
323a2f0b 351
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352 Similarly, the name resolution daemon requires the "systemd-resolve"
353 system user and group to exist.
323a2f0b 354
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355 Similarly, the coredump support requires the "systemd-coredump" system
356 user and group to exist.
888e378d 357
c87abcfa 358GLIBC NSS:
409093fe 359 systemd ships with four glibc NSS modules:
a4a79605 360
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361 nss-myhostname resolves the local hostname to locally configured IP
362 addresses, as well as "localhost" to 127.0.0.1/::1.
a4a79605 363
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364 nss-resolve enables DNS resolution via the systemd-resolved DNS/LLMNR
365 caching stub resolver "systemd-resolved".
a4a79605 366
409093fe 367 nss-mymachines enables resolution of all local containers registered
38ccb557 368 with machined to their respective IP addresses.
a4a79605 369
38ccb557 370 nss-systemd enables resolution of users/group registered via the
1d10005b 371 User/Group Record Lookup API (https://systemd.io/USER_GROUP_API),
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372 including all dynamically allocated service users. (See the
373 DynamicUser= setting in unit files.)
a4a79605 374
409093fe 375 To make use of these NSS modules, please add them to the "hosts:",
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376 "passwd:" and "group:" lines in /etc/nsswitch.conf. The "resolve" module
377 should replace the glibc "dns" module in this file (and don't worry, it
378 chain-loads the "dns" module if it can't talk to resolved).
a4a79605 379
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380 The four modules should be used in the following order:
381
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382 passwd: compat systemd
383 group: compat systemd
a42d4f57 384 hosts: files mymachines resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] dns myhostname
a4a79605 385
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386SYSV INIT.D SCRIPTS:
387 When calling "systemctl enable/disable/is-enabled" on a unit which is a
388 SysV init.d script, it calls /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install;
389 this needs to translate the action into the distribution specific
390 mechanism such as chkconfig or update-rc.d. Packagers need to provide
391 this script if you need this functionality (you don't if you disabled
392 SysV init support).
393
394 Please see src/systemctl/systemd-sysv-install.SKELETON for how this
395 needs to look like, and provide an implementation at the marked places.
396
88a3af94 397WARNINGS and TAINT FLAGS:
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398 systemd will warn during early boot if /usr is not already mounted at
399 this point (that means: either located on the same file system as / or
400 already mounted in the initrd). While in systemd itself very little
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401 will break if /usr is on a separate late-mounted partition, many of its
402 dependencies very likely will break sooner or later in one form or
9e93f6f0 403 another. For example, udev rules tend to refer to binaries in /usr,
8bf9eb7e 404 binaries that link to libraries in /usr, or binaries that refer to data
9e93f6f0 405 files in /usr. Since these breakages are not always directly visible,
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406 systemd will warn about this. Such setups are not really supported by
407 the basic set of Linux OS components. Taint flag 'split-usr' will be
408 set when this condition is detected.
47bc23c1 409
aa167132 410 For more information on this issue consult
c6749ba5 411 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken
aa167132 412
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413 systemd will warn if the filesystem is not usr-merged (i.e.: /bin, /sbin
414 and /lib* are not symlinks to their counterparts under /usr). Taint flag
415 'unmerged-usr' will be set when this condition is detected.
416
417 For more information on this issue consult
418 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge
419
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420 systemd requires that the /run mount point exists. systemd also
421 requires that /var/run is a symlink to /run. Taint flag 'var-run-bad'
422 will be set when this condition is detected.
423
424 Systemd will also warn when the cgroup support is unavailable in the
425 kernel (taint flag 'cgroups-missing'), the system is using the old
426 cgroup hierarchy (taint flag 'cgroupsv1'), the hardware clock is
427 running in non-UTC mode (taint flag 'local-hwclock'), the kernel
428 overflow UID or GID are not 65534 (taint flags 'overflowuid-not-65534'
429 and 'overflowgid-not-65534'), the UID or GID range assigned to the
430 running systemd instance covers less than 0…65534 (taint flags
431 'short-uid-range' and 'short-gid-range').
432
433 Taint conditions are logged during boot, but may also be checked at any
434 time with:
435
436 busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Tainted
437
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438 See org.freedesktop.systemd1(5) for more information.
439
88a3af94 440VALGRIND:
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441 To run systemd under valgrind, compile systemd with the valgrind
442 development headers available (i.e. valgrind-devel or equivalent).
443 Otherwise, false positives will be triggered by code which violates
444 some rules but is actually safe. Note that valgrind generates nice
445 output only on exit(), hence on shutdown we don't execve()
446 systemd-shutdown.
2b671e95 447
ba9e3fc4 448STABLE BRANCHES AND BACKPORTS:
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449 Stable branches with backported patches are available in the
450 systemd-stable repo at https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable.
451
452 Stable branches are started for certain releases of systemd and named
453 after them, e.g. v238-stable. Stable branches are managed by
454 distribution maintainers on an as needed basis. See
a25d9395 455 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Backports for some
bfeb370a 456 more information and examples.