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d657c51f 1systemd System and Service Manager
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2
3DETAILS:
4 http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
5
6WEB SITE:
19d9372b 7 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd
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8
9GIT:
eb0914fc 10 git@github.com:systemd/systemd.git
eb0914fc 11 https://github.com/systemd/systemd
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12
13MAILING LIST:
19d9372b 14 https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
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15
16IRC:
17 #systemd on irc.freenode.org
18
19BUG REPORTS:
eb0914fc 20 https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues
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21
22AUTHOR:
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23 Lennart Poettering
24 Kay Sievers
25 ...and many others
31cee6f6 26
673eab9b 27LICENSE:
5430f7f2 28 LGPLv2.1+ for all code
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29 - except src/basic/MurmurHash2.c which is Public Domain
30 - except src/basic/siphash24.c which is CC0 Public Domain
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31 - except src/journal/lookup3.c which is Public Domain
32 - except src/udev/* which is (currently still) GPLv2, GPLv2+
673eab9b 33
31cee6f6 34REQUIREMENTS:
dcce98a4 35 Linux kernel >= 3.13
a0c3e16b 36 Linux kernel >= 4.2 for unified cgroup hierarchy support
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37
38 Kernel Config Options:
713bc0cf 39 CONFIG_DEVTMPFS
d28315e4 40 CONFIG_CGROUPS (it is OK to disable all controllers)
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41 CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER
42 CONFIG_SIGNALFD
43 CONFIG_TIMERFD
44 CONFIG_EPOLL
41938693 45 CONFIG_NET
713bc0cf 46 CONFIG_SYSFS
06d461ee 47 CONFIG_PROC_FS
5d31974e 48 CONFIG_FHANDLE (libudev, mount and bind mount handling)
713bc0cf 49
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50 Kernel crypto/hash API
51 CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_HASH
52 CONFIG_CRYPTO_HMAC
53 CONFIG_CRYPTO_SHA256
54
be2ea723 55 udev will fail to work with the legacy sysfs layout:
f28cbd03 56 CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED=n
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57
58 Legacy hotplug slows down the system and confuses udev:
59 CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER_PATH=""
60
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61 Userspace firmware loading is not supported and should
62 be disabled in the kernel:
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63 CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n
64
65 Some udev rules and virtualization detection relies on it:
66 CONFIG_DMIID
67
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68 Support for some SCSI devices serial number retrieval, to
69 create additional symlinks in /dev/disk/ and /dev/tape:
70 CONFIG_BLK_DEV_BSG
71
0ca48bb0 72 Required for PrivateNetwork= and PrivateDevices= in service units:
13468826 73 CONFIG_NET_NS
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74 CONFIG_DEVPTS_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES
75 Note that systemd-localed.service and other systemd units use
76 PrivateNetwork and PrivateDevices so this is effectively required.
13468826 77
0ca48bb0 78 Required for PrivateUsers= in service units:
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79 CONFIG_USER_NS
80
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81 Optional but strongly recommended:
82 CONFIG_IPV6
83 CONFIG_AUTOFS4_FS
713bc0cf 84 CONFIG_TMPFS_XATTR
a6cccd8f 85 CONFIG_{TMPFS,EXT4,XFS,BTRFS_FS,...}_POSIX_ACL
f28cbd03 86 CONFIG_SECCOMP
fd74fa79 87 CONFIG_SECCOMP_FILTER (required for seccomp support)
3b920d78 88 CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE (for the kcmp() syscall)
713bc0cf 89
f4e74be1 90 Required for CPUShares= in resource control unit settings
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91 CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED
92 CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
93
f4e74be1 94 Required for CPUQuota= in resource control unit settings
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95 CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH
96
f28cbd03 97 For UEFI systems:
f33016ff 98 CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS
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99 CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION
100
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101 We recommend to turn off Real-Time group scheduling in the
102 kernel when using systemd. RT group scheduling effectively
103 makes RT scheduling unavailable for most userspace, since it
104 requires explicit assignment of RT budgets to each unit whose
105 processes making use of RT. As there's no sensible way to
106 assign these budgets automatically this cannot really be
107 fixed, and it's best to disable group scheduling hence.
108 CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED=n
109
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110 It's a good idea to disable the implicit creation of networking bonding
111 devices by the kernel networking bonding module, so that the
112 automatically created "bond0" interface doesn't conflict with any such
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113 device created by systemd-networkd (or other tools). Ideally there
114 would be a kernel compile-time option for this, but there currently
115 isn't. The next best thing is to make this change through a modprobe.d
116 drop-in. This is shipped by default, see modprobe.d/systemd.conf.
f5a93d5d 117
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118 Note that kernel auditing is broken when used with systemd's
119 container code. When using systemd in conjunction with
19aadacf 120 containers, please make sure to either turn off auditing at
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121 runtime using the kernel command line option "audit=0", or
122 turn it off at kernel compile time using:
123 CONFIG_AUDIT=n
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124 If systemd is compiled with libseccomp support on
125 architectures which do not use socketcall() and where seccomp
126 is supported (this effectively means x86-64 and ARM, but
70a44afe 127 excludes 32-bit x86!), then nspawn will now install a
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128 work-around seccomp filter that makes containers boot even
129 with audit being enabled. This works correctly only on kernels
130 3.14 and newer though. TL;DR: turn audit off, still.
77b6e194 131
3dd26f3e 132 glibc >= 2.16
3ede835a 133 libcap
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134 libmount >= 2.30 (from util-linux)
135 (util-linux *must* be built without --enable-libmount-support-mtab)
6abfd303 136 libseccomp >= 2.3.1 (optional)
d47f6ca5 137 libblkid >= 2.24 (from util-linux) (optional)
a18535d9 138 libkmod >= 15 (optional)
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139 PAM >= 1.1.2 (optional)
140 libcryptsetup (optional)
141 libaudit (optional)
19d5d4cb 142 libacl (optional)
3ede835a 143 libselinux (optional)
19d5d4cb 144 liblzma (optional)
a509e0e6 145 liblz4 >= 119 (optional)
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146 libgcrypt (optional)
147 libqrencode (optional)
148 libmicrohttpd (optional)
2cc86f09 149 libpython (optional)
87057e24 150 libidn2 or libidn (optional)
5b244719 151 elfutils >= 158 (optional)
c8121792 152 polkit >= 0.113-22-gc78819245f (optional)
72cdb3e7 153 pkg-config
8f968c73 154 gperf
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155 docbook-xsl (optional, required for documentation)
156 xsltproc (optional, required for documentation)
157 python-lxml (optional, required to build the indices)
158 python, meson, ninja
159 gcc, awk, sed, grep, m4, and similar tools
2cc86f09 160
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161 During runtime, you need the following additional
162 dependencies:
2cc86f09 163
1d40ddbf 164 util-linux >= v2.27.1 required
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165 dbus >= 1.4.0 (strictly speaking optional, but recommended)
166 NOTE: If using dbus < 1.9.18, you should override the default
167 policy directory (--with-dbuspolicydir=/etc/dbus-1/system.d).
2cc86f09 168 dracut (optional)
46ba8aae 169 PolicyKit (optional)
3ede835a 170
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171 To build in directory build/:
172 meson build/ && ninja -C build
173
174 Any configuration options can be specfied as -Darg=value... arguments
175 to meson. After the build directory is initially configured, meson will
176 refuse to run again, and options must be changed with:
177 mesonconf -Darg=value...
178 mesonconf without any arguments will print out available options and
179 their current values.
180
181 Useful commands:
182 ninja -v some/target
183 ninja test
184 sudo ninja install
185 DESTDIR=... ninja install
186
72cdb3e7 187 A tarball can be created with:
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188 git archive --format=tar --prefix=systemd-222/ v222 | xz > systemd-222.tar.xz
189
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190 When systemd-hostnamed is used, it is strongly recommended to
191 install nss-myhostname to ensure that, in a world of
192 dynamically changing hostnames, the hostname stays resolvable
fff2e5b5 193 under all circumstances. In fact, systemd-hostnamed will warn
bf9e477c 194 if nss-myhostname is not installed.
fff2e5b5 195
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196 Additional packages are necessary to run some tests:
197 - busybox (used by test/TEST-13-NSPAWN-SMOKE)
198 - nc (used by test/TEST-12-ISSUE-3171)
199 - python3-pyparsing
200 - python3-evdev (used by hwdb parsing tests)
201 - strace (used by test/test-functions)
e94681ad 202 - capsh (optional, used by test-execute)
a2fc3d87 203
a24c64f0 204USERS AND GROUPS:
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205 Default udev rules use the following standard system group
206 names, which need to be resolvable by getgrnam() at any time,
207 even in the very early boot stages, where no other databases
208 and network are available:
209
3dff3e00 210 audio, cdrom, dialout, disk, input, kmem, lp, tape, tty, video
37c0e8f3 211
19aadacf 212 During runtime, the journal daemon requires the
1a9ce3f7 213 "systemd-journal" system group to exist. New journal files will
19aadacf 214 be readable by this group (but not writable), which may be used
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215 to grant specific users read access. In addition, system
216 groups "wheel" and "adm" will be given read-only access to
217 journal files using systemd-tmpfiles.service.
a24c64f0 218
37495eed 219 The journal gateway daemon requires the
1a9ce3f7 220 "systemd-journal-gateway" system user and group to
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221 exist. During execution this network facing service will drop
222 privileges and assume this uid/gid for security reasons.
223
8d0e0ddd 224 Similarly, the NTP daemon requires the "systemd-timesync" system
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225 user and group to exist.
226
8d0e0ddd 227 Similarly, the network management daemon requires the
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228 "systemd-network" system user and group to exist.
229
8d0e0ddd 230 Similarly, the name resolution daemon requires the
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231 "systemd-resolve" system user and group to exist.
232
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233 Similarly, the coredump support requires the
234 "systemd-coredump" system user and group to exist.
235
a4a79605 236NSS:
409093fe 237 systemd ships with four glibc NSS modules:
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238
239 nss-myhostname resolves the local hostname to locally
240 configured IP addresses, as well as "localhost" to
241 127.0.0.1/::1.
242
243 nss-resolve enables DNS resolution via the systemd-resolved
244 DNS/LLMNR caching stub resolver "systemd-resolved".
245
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246 nss-mymachines enables resolution of all local containers registered
247 with machined to their respective IP addresses. It also maps UID/GIDs
248 ranges used by containers to useful names.
a4a79605 249
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250 nss-systemd enables resolution of all dynamically allocated service
251 users. (See the DynamicUser= setting in unit files.)
a4a79605 252
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253 To make use of these NSS modules, please add them to the "hosts:",
254 "passwd:" and "group:" lines in /etc/nsswitch.conf. The "resolve"
255 module should replace the glibc "dns" module in this file (and don't
256 worry, it chain-loads the "dns" module if it can't talk to resolved).
a4a79605 257
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258 The four modules should be used in the following order:
259
260 passwd: compat mymachines systemd
261 group: compat mymachines systemd
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262 hosts: files mymachines resolve myhostname
263
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264SYSV INIT.D SCRIPTS:
265 When calling "systemctl enable/disable/is-enabled" on a unit which is a
266 SysV init.d script, it calls /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install;
267 this needs to translate the action into the distribution specific
268 mechanism such as chkconfig or update-rc.d. Packagers need to provide
269 this script if you need this functionality (you don't if you disabled
270 SysV init support).
271
272 Please see src/systemctl/systemd-sysv-install.SKELETON for how this
273 needs to look like, and provide an implementation at the marked places.
274
21bc923a 275WARNINGS:
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276 systemd will warn you during boot if /usr is on a different
277 file system than /. While in systemd itself very little will
19aadacf 278 break if /usr is on a separate partition, many of its
21bc923a 279 dependencies very likely will break sooner or later in one
19aadacf 280 form or another. For example, udev rules tend to refer to
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281 binaries in /usr, binaries that link to libraries in /usr or
282 binaries that refer to data files in /usr. Since these
19aadacf 283 breakages are not always directly visible, systemd will warn
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284 about this, since this kind of file system setup is not really
285 supported anymore by the basic set of Linux OS components.
fc7a744c 286
47bc23c1 287 systemd requires that the /run mount point exists. systemd also
8f42ccd2 288 requires that /var/run is a symlink to /run.
47bc23c1 289
aa167132 290 For more information on this issue consult
c6749ba5 291 https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken
aa167132 292
1b4bb4fd 293 To run systemd under valgrind, compile with VALGRIND defined
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294 (e.g. CPPFLAGS='... -DVALGRIND=1' meson <options>) and have valgrind
295 development headers installed (i.e. valgrind-devel or
296 equivalent). Otherwise, false positives will be triggered by code which
297 violates some rules but is actually safe. Note that valgrind generates
298 nice output only on exit(), hence on shutdown we don't execve()
299 systemd-shutdown.
2b671e95 300
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301ENGINEERING AND CONSULTING SERVICES:
302 Kinvolk (https://kinvolk.io) offers professional engineering
303 and consulting services for systemd. Please contact Chris Kühl
304 <chris@kinvolk.io> for more information.