1systemd System and Service Manager
2
3WEB SITE:
4        https://systemd.io
5
6GIT:
7        git@github.com:systemd/systemd.git
8        https://github.com/systemd/systemd
9
10MAILING LIST:
11        https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
12
13IRC:
14        #systemd on irc.libera.chat
15
16BUG REPORTS:
17        https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues
18
19OLDER DOCUMENTATION:
20
21        http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
22        https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd
23
24AUTHOR:
25        Lennart Poettering
26        Kay Sievers
27        ...and many others
28
29LICENSE:
30        LGPL-2.1-or-later for all code, exceptions noted in LICENSES/README.md
31
32REQUIREMENTS:
33        Linux kernel ≥ 3.15
34                     ≥ 4.3 for ambient capabilities
35                     ≥ 4.5 for pids controller in cgroup v2
36                     ≥ 4.6 for cgroup namespaces
37                     ≥ 4.9 for RENAME_NOREPLACE support in vfat
38                     ≥ 4.10 for cgroup-bpf egress and ingress hooks
39                     ≥ 4.15 for cgroup-bpf device hook and cpu controller in cgroup v2
40                     ≥ 4.17 for cgroup-bpf socket address hooks
41                     ≥ 4.20 for PSI (used by systemd-oomd)
42                     ≥ 5.3 for bounded loops in BPF program
43                     ≥ 5.4 for signed Verity images
44                     ≥ 5.7 for BPF links and the BPF LSM hook
45
46        Kernel versions below 4.15 have significant gaps in functionality and
47        are not recommended for use with this version of systemd. Taint flag
48        'old-kernel' will be set. Systemd will most likely still function, but
49        upstream support and testing are limited.
50
51        Kernel Config Options:
52          CONFIG_DEVTMPFS
53          CONFIG_CGROUPS (it is OK to disable all controllers)
54          CONFIG_INOTIFY_USER
55          CONFIG_SIGNALFD
56          CONFIG_TIMERFD
57          CONFIG_EPOLL
58          CONFIG_UNIX (it requires CONFIG_NET, but every other flag in it is not necessary)
59          CONFIG_SYSFS
60          CONFIG_PROC_FS
61          CONFIG_FHANDLE (libudev, mount and bind mount handling)
62
63        Kernel crypto/hash API:
64          CONFIG_CRYPTO_USER_API_HASH
65          CONFIG_CRYPTO_HMAC
66          CONFIG_CRYPTO_SHA256
67
68        udev will fail to work with the legacy sysfs layout:
69          CONFIG_SYSFS_DEPRECATED=n
70
71        Legacy hotplug slows down the system and confuses udev:
72          CONFIG_UEVENT_HELPER_PATH=""
73
74        Userspace firmware loading is not supported and should be disabled in
75        the kernel:
76          CONFIG_FW_LOADER_USER_HELPER=n
77
78        Some udev rules and virtualization detection relies on it:
79          CONFIG_DMIID
80
81        Support for some SCSI devices serial number retrieval, to create
82        additional symlinks in /dev/disk/ and /dev/tape:
83          CONFIG_BLK_DEV_BSG
84
85        Required for PrivateNetwork= in service units:
86          CONFIG_NET_NS
87        Note that systemd-localed.service and other systemd units use
88        PrivateNetwork so this is effectively required.
89
90        Required for PrivateUsers= in service units:
91          CONFIG_USER_NS
92
93        Optional but strongly recommended:
94          CONFIG_IPV6
95          CONFIG_AUTOFS_FS
96          CONFIG_TMPFS_XATTR
97          CONFIG_{TMPFS,EXT4_FS,XFS,BTRFS_FS,...}_POSIX_ACL
98          CONFIG_SECCOMP
99          CONFIG_SECCOMP_FILTER (required for seccomp support)
100          CONFIG_KCMP (for the kcmp() syscall, used to be under
101                       CONFIG_CHECKPOINT_RESTORE before ~5.12)
102
103        Required for CPUShares= in resource control unit settings:
104          CONFIG_CGROUP_SCHED
105          CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED
106
107        Required for CPUQuota= in resource control unit settings:
108          CONFIG_CFS_BANDWIDTH
109
110        Required for IPAddressDeny=, IPAddressAllow=, IPIngressFilterPath=,
111        IPEgressFilterPath= in resource control unit settings unit settings:
112          CONFIG_BPF
113          CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
114          CONFIG_BPF_JIT
115          CONFIG_HAVE_EBPF_JIT
116          CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF
117
118        Required for SocketBind{Allow|Deny}=, RestrictNetworkInterfaces= in
119        resource control unit settings:
120          CONFIG_BPF
121          CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
122          CONFIG_BPF_JIT
123          CONFIG_HAVE_EBPF_JIT
124          CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF
125
126        For UEFI systems:
127          CONFIG_EFIVAR_FS
128          CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION
129
130        Required for signed Verity images support:
131          CONFIG_DM_VERITY_VERIFY_ROOTHASH_SIG
132
133        Required for RestrictFileSystems= in service units:
134          CONFIG_BPF
135          CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL
136          CONFIG_BPF_LSM
137          CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF
138          CONFIG_LSM="...,bpf" or kernel booted with lsm="...,bpf".
139
140        We recommend to turn off Real-Time group scheduling in the kernel when
141        using systemd. RT group scheduling effectively makes RT scheduling
142        unavailable for most userspace, since it requires explicit assignment of
143        RT budgets to each unit whose processes making use of RT. As there's no
144        sensible way to assign these budgets automatically this cannot really be
145        fixed, and it's best to disable group scheduling hence:
146           CONFIG_RT_GROUP_SCHED=n
147
148        It's a good idea to disable the implicit creation of networking bonding
149        devices by the kernel networking bonding module, so that the
150        automatically created "bond0" interface doesn't conflict with any such
151        device created by systemd-networkd (or other tools). Ideally there would
152        be a kernel compile-time option for this, but there currently isn't. The
153        next best thing is to make this change through a modprobe.d drop-in.
154        This is shipped by default, see modprobe.d/systemd.conf.
155
156        Required for systemd-nspawn:
157          CONFIG_DEVPTS_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES or Linux kernel >= 4.7
158
159        Required for systemd-oomd:
160          CONFIG_PSI
161
162        Note that kernel auditing is broken when used with systemd's container
163        code. When using systemd in conjunction with containers, please make
164        sure to either turn off auditing at runtime using the kernel command
165        line option "audit=0", or turn it off at kernel compile time using:
166          CONFIG_AUDIT=n
167        If systemd is compiled with libseccomp support on architectures which do
168        not use socketcall() and where seccomp is supported (this effectively
169        means x86-64 and ARM, but excludes 32-bit x86!), then nspawn will now
170        install a work-around seccomp filter that makes containers boot even
171        with audit being enabled. This works correctly only on kernels 3.14 and
172        newer though. TL;DR: turn audit off, still.
173
174        glibc >= 2.16
175        libcap
176        libmount >= 2.30 (from util-linux)
177                (util-linux *must* be built without --enable-libmount-support-mtab)
178        libseccomp >= 2.3.1 (optional)
179        libblkid >= 2.24 (from util-linux) (optional)
180        libkmod >= 15 (optional)
181        PAM >= 1.1.2 (optional)
182        libcryptsetup (optional), >= 2.3.0 required for signed Verity images support
183        libaudit (optional)
184        libacl (optional)
185        libbpf >= 0.2.0 (optional)
186        libfdisk >= 2.32 (from util-linux) (optional)
187        libselinux (optional)
188        liblzma (optional)
189        liblz4 >= 1.3.0 / 130 (optional)
190        libzstd >= 1.4.0 (optional)
191        libgcrypt (optional)
192        libqrencode (optional)
193        libmicrohttpd (optional)
194        libpython (optional)
195        libidn2 or libidn (optional)
196        gnutls >= 3.1.4 (optional, >= 3.6.0 is required to support DNS-over-TLS with gnutls)
197        openssl >= 1.1.0 (optional, required to support DNS-over-TLS with openssl)
198        elfutils >= 158 (optional)
199        polkit (optional)
200        tzdata >= 2014f (optional)
201        pkg-config
202        gperf
203        docbook-xsl (optional, required for documentation)
204        xsltproc    (optional, required for documentation)
205        python-jinja2
206        python-lxml (optional, required to build the indices)
207        python >= 3.5
208        meson >= 0.53.2
209        ninja
210        gcc, awk, sed, grep, and similar tools
211        clang >= 10.0, llvm >= 10.0 (optional, required to build BPF programs
212                from source code in C)
213        gnu-efi >= 3.0.5 (optional, required for systemd-boot)
214
215        During runtime, you need the following additional
216        dependencies:
217
218        util-linux >= v2.27.1 required
219        dbus >= 1.4.0 (strictly speaking optional, but recommended)
220                NOTE: If using dbus < 1.9.18, you should override the default
221                policy directory (--with-dbuspolicydir=/etc/dbus-1/system.d).
222        dracut (optional)
223        polkit (optional)
224
225        To build in directory build/:
226          meson setup build/ && ninja -C build/
227
228        Any configuration options can be specified as -Darg=value... arguments
229        to meson. After the build directory is initially configured, meson will
230        refuse to run again, and options must be changed with:
231          meson configure -Darg=value build/
232        meson configure without any arguments will print out available options and
233        their current values.
234
235        Useful commands:
236          ninja -C build -v some/target
237          meson test -C build/
238          sudo meson install -C build/ --no-rebuild
239          DESTDIR=... meson install -C build/
240
241        A tarball can be created with:
242          v=250 && git archive --prefix=systemd-$v/ v$v | zstd >systemd-$v.tar.zstd
243
244        When systemd-hostnamed is used, it is strongly recommended to install
245        nss-myhostname to ensure that, in a world of dynamically changing
246        hostnames, the hostname stays resolvable under all circumstances. In
247        fact, systemd-hostnamed will warn if nss-myhostname is not installed.
248
249        nss-systemd must be enabled on systemd systems, as that's required for
250        DynamicUser= to work. Note that we ship services out-of-the-box that
251        make use of DynamicUser= now, hence enabling nss-systemd is not
252        optional.
253
254        Note that the build prefix for systemd must be /usr. (Moreover, packages
255        systemd relies on — such as D-Bus — really should use the same prefix,
256        otherwise you are on your own.) -Dsplit-usr=false (which is the default
257        and does not need to be specified) is the recommended setting.
258        -Dsplit-usr=true can be used to give a semblance of support for systems
259        with programs installed split between / and /usr. Moving everything
260        under /usr is strongly encouraged.
261
262        Additional packages are necessary to run some tests:
263        - busybox            (used by test/TEST-13-NSPAWN-SMOKE)
264        - nc                 (used by test/TEST-12-ISSUE-3171)
265        - python3-pyparsing
266        - python3-evdev      (used by hwdb parsing tests)
267        - strace             (used by test/test-functions)
268        - capsh              (optional, used by test-execute)
269
270POLICY FOR SUPPORT OF DISTRIBUTIONS AND ARCHITECTURES:
271
272        systemd main branch and latest major or stable releases are generally
273        expected to compile on current versions of popular distributions (at
274        least all non-EOL versions of Fedora, Debian unstable/testing/stable,
275        latest Ubuntu LTS and non-LTS releases, openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap,
276        CentOS Stream 8 and 9, up-to-date Arch, etc.)  We will generally
277        attempt to support also other non-EOL versions of various distros.
278        Features which would break compilation on slightly-older distributions
279        will only be introduced if there are significant reasons for this
280        (i.e. supporting them interferes with development or requires too many
281        resources to support). In some cases backports of specific libraries or
282        tools might be required.
283
284        The policy is similar wrt. architecture support. systemd is regularly
285        tested on popular architectures (currently amd64, i386, arm64, ppc64el,
286        and s390x), but should compile and work also on other architectures, for
287        which support has been added. systemd will emit warnings when
288        architecture-specific constants are not defined.
289
290USERS AND GROUPS:
291        Default udev rules use the following standard system group names, which
292        need to be resolvable by getgrnam() at any time, even in the very early
293        boot stages, where no other databases and network are available:
294
295        audio, cdrom, dialout, disk, input, kmem, kvm, lp, render, tape, tty, video
296
297        During runtime, the journal daemon requires the "systemd-journal" system
298        group to exist. New journal files will be readable by this group (but
299        not writable), which may be used to grant specific users read access. In
300        addition, system groups "wheel" and "adm" will be given read-only access
301        to journal files using systemd-tmpfiles.service.
302
303        The journal remote daemon requires the "systemd-journal-remote" system
304        user and group to exist. During execution this network facing service
305        will drop privileges and assume this uid/gid for security reasons.
306
307        Similarly, the network management daemon requires the "systemd-network"
308        system user and group to exist.
309
310        Similarly, the name resolution daemon requires the "systemd-resolve"
311        system user and group to exist.
312
313        Similarly, the coredump support requires the "systemd-coredump" system
314        user and group to exist.
315
316NSS:
317        systemd ships with four glibc NSS modules:
318
319        nss-myhostname resolves the local hostname to locally configured IP
320        addresses, as well as "localhost" to 127.0.0.1/::1.
321
322        nss-resolve enables DNS resolution via the systemd-resolved DNS/LLMNR
323        caching stub resolver "systemd-resolved".
324
325        nss-mymachines enables resolution of all local containers registered
326        with machined to their respective IP addresses.
327
328        nss-systemd enables resolution of users/group registered via the
329        User/Group Record Lookup API (https://systemd.io/USER_GROUP_API),
330        including all dynamically allocated service users. (See the
331        DynamicUser= setting in unit files.)
332
333        To make use of these NSS modules, please add them to the "hosts:",
334        "passwd:" and "group:" lines in /etc/nsswitch.conf. The "resolve" module
335        should replace the glibc "dns" module in this file (and don't worry, it
336        chain-loads the "dns" module if it can't talk to resolved).
337
338        The four modules should be used in the following order:
339
340                passwd: compat systemd
341                group: compat systemd
342                hosts: files mymachines resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] dns myhostname
343
344SYSV INIT.D SCRIPTS:
345        When calling "systemctl enable/disable/is-enabled" on a unit which is a
346        SysV init.d script, it calls /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install;
347        this needs to translate the action into the distribution specific
348        mechanism such as chkconfig or update-rc.d. Packagers need to provide
349        this script if you need this functionality (you don't if you disabled
350        SysV init support).
351
352        Please see src/systemctl/systemd-sysv-install.SKELETON for how this
353        needs to look like, and provide an implementation at the marked places.
354
355WARNINGS and TAINT FLAGS:
356        systemd will warn during early boot if /usr is not already mounted at
357        this point (that means: either located on the same file system as / or
358        already mounted in the initrd). While in systemd itself very little
359        will break if /usr is on a separate late-mounted partition, many of its
360        dependencies very likely will break sooner or later in one form or
361        another. For example, udev rules tend to refer to binaries in /usr,
362        binaries that link to libraries in /usr or binaries that refer to data
363        files in /usr. Since these breakages are not always directly visible,
364        systemd will warn about this. Such setups are not really supported by
365        the basic set of Linux OS components. Taint flag 'split-usr' will be
366        set when this condition is detected.
367
368        For more information on this issue consult
369        https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/separate-usr-is-broken
370
371        systemd will warn if the filesystem is not usr-merged (i.e.: /bin, /sbin
372        and /lib* are not symlinks to their counterparts under /usr). Taint flag
373        'unmerged-usr' will be set when this condition is detected.
374
375        For more information on this issue consult
376        https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TheCaseForTheUsrMerge
377
378        systemd requires that the /run mount point exists. systemd also
379        requires that /var/run is a symlink to /run. Taint flag 'var-run-bad'
380        will be set when this condition is detected.
381
382        Systemd will also warn when the cgroup support is unavailable in the
383        kernel (taint flag 'cgroups-missing'), the system is using the old
384        cgroup hierarchy (taint flag 'cgroupsv1'), the hardware clock is
385        running in non-UTC mode (taint flag 'local-hwclock'), the kernel
386        overflow UID or GID are not 65534 (taint flags 'overflowuid-not-65534'
387        and 'overflowgid-not-65534'), the UID or GID range assigned to the
388        running systemd instance covers less than 0…65534 (taint flags
389        'short-uid-range' and 'short-gid-range').
390
391        Taint conditions are logged during boot, but may also be checked at any
392        time with:
393
394          busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Tainted
395
396VALGRIND:
397        To run systemd under valgrind, compile with meson option
398        -Dvalgrind=true and have valgrind development headers installed
399        (i.e. valgrind-devel or equivalent). Otherwise, false positives will be
400        triggered by code which violates some rules but is actually safe. Note
401        that valgrind generates nice output only on exit(), hence on shutdown
402        we don't execve() systemd-shutdown.
403
404STABLE BRANCHES AND BACKPORTS:
405        Stable branches with backported patches are available in the
406        systemd-stable repo at https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable.
407
408        Stable branches are started for certain releases of systemd and named
409        after them, e.g. v238-stable. Stable branches are managed by
410        distribution maintainers on an as needed basis. See
411        https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Backports/ for some
412        more information and examples.
413