systemd Developer Lennart Poettering lennart@poettering.net systemd-run 1 systemd-run Run programs in transient scope or service or timer units systemd-run 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 transient .timer units. 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. If a command is run as transient scope unit, it will be started 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 timer options such as --on-calendar= (see below), a transient timer unit is created alongside the service unit for the specified command. Only the transient timer unit is started immediately, the transient service unit will be started when the transient timer elapses. If the --unit= is specified, the COMMAND may be omitted. In this case, systemd-run only creates a .timer unit that invokes the specified unit when elapsing. 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. --unit= Use this unit name instead of an automatically generated one. --property= -p Sets a unit property for the scope or service unit that is created. This takes an assignment in the same format as systemctl1's set-property command. --description= Provide a description for the service or scope unit. If not specified, the command itself will be used as a description. See Description= in systemd.unit5. --slice= Make the new .service or .scope unit part of the specified slice, instead of the system.slice. --remain-after-exit After the service or scope 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.service5. --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.kill5. --service-type= Sets the service type. Also see Type= in systemd.service5. This option has no effect in conjunction with --scope. Defaults to simple. --uid= --gid= Runs the service process under the UNIX user and group. Also see User= and Group= in systemd.exec5. --nice= Runs the service process with the specified nice level. Also see Nice= in systemd.exec5. --setenv= Runs the service process with the specified environment variables set. Also see Environment= in systemd.exec5. --pty -t When invoking a command as service connects its standard input and output to the invoking tty via a pseudo TTY device. This allows invoking binaries as services that expect interactive user input, such as interactive command shells. --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 monotonic timers relative to different starting points. Also see OnActiveSec=, OnBootSec=, OnStartupSec=, OnUnitActiveSec= and OnUnitInactiveSec= in systemd.timer5. This options have no effect in conjunction with --scope. --on-calendar= Defines realtime (i.e. wallclock) timers with calendar event expressions. Also see OnCalendar= in systemd.timer5. This option has no effect in conjunction with --scope. --timer-property= Sets a timer unit property for the timer unit that is created. It is similar with --property but only for created timer unit. This option only has effect in conjunction with --on-active=, --on-boot=, --on-startup=, --on-unit-active=, --on-unit-inactive=, --on-calendar=. This takes an assignment in the same format as systemctl1's set-property command. --no-block Do not synchronously wait for the requested operation to finish. If this is not specified, the job 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. 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, its first argument needs to be an absolute binary path. On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise. The following command will log the 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 The following command invokes the updatedb8 tool, but lowers the block I/O weight for it to 10. See systemd.resource-control5 for more information on the BlockIOWeight= property. # systemd-run -p BlockIOWeight=10 updatedb 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 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. 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 systemd1, systemctl1, systemd.unit5, systemd.service5, systemd.scope5, systemd.slice5, systemd.exec5, systemd.resource-control5, systemd.timer5, machinectl1