tmpfiles.d
systemd
Documentation
Brandon
Philips
brandon@ifup.org
tmpfiles.d
5
tmpfiles.d
Configuration for creation, deletion and
cleaning of volatile and temporary files
/etc/tmpfiles.d/*.conf
/run/tmpfiles.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/*.conf
Description
systemd-tmpfiles uses the
configuration files from the above directories to describe the
creation, cleaning and removal of volatile and
temporary files and directories which usually reside
in directories such as /run
or /tmp.
Configuration Format
Each configuration file is named in the style of
<program>.conf. Files in
/etc/ override files with the
same name in /usr/lib/. Files in
/run override files with the same
name in /etc/ and
/usr/lib/. Packages should
install their configuration files in
/usr/lib/, files in
/etc/ are reserved for the local
administrator, who may choose to override the
configurations installed from packages. The list of
configuration files are sorted by their filename in
alphabetical order, regardless in which of the
directories they reside, to guarantee that a
configuration file takes precedence over another
configuration file with an alphabetically later
name.
The configuration format is one line per path
containing action, path, mode, ownership, age and argument
fields:
Type Path Mode UID GID Age Argument
d /run/user 0755 root root 10d -
L /tmp/foobar - - - - /dev/null
Type
f
Create a file if it doesn't exist yet (optionally writing a short string into it, if the argument parameter is passed)
F
Create or truncate a file (optionally writing a short string into it, if the argument parameter is passed)
w
Write the argument parameter to a file, if it exists.
d
Create a directory if it doesn't exist yet
D
Create or empty a directory
p
Create a named pipe (FIFO) if it doesn't exist yet
L
Create a symlink if it doesn't exist yet
c
Create a character device node if it doesn't exist yet
b
Create a block device node if it doesn't exist yet
x
Ignore a path
during cleaning. Use this type
to exclude paths from clean-up
as controlled with the Age
parameter. Note that lines of
this type do not influence the
effect of r or R lines. Lines
of this type accept
shell-style globs in place of
of normal path
names.
r
Remove a file
or directory if it
exists. This may not be used
to remove non-empty
directories, use R for
that. Lines of this type
accept shell-style globs in
place of normal path
names.
R
Recursively
remove a path and all its
subdirectories (if it is a
directory). Lines of this type
accept shell-style globs in
place of normal path
names.
z
Restore
SELinux security context label
and set ownership and access
mode of a file or directory if
it exists. Lines of this type
accept shell-style globs in
place of normal path names.
Z
Recursively
restore SELinux security
context label and set
ownership and access mode of a
path and all its
subdirectories (if it is a
directory). Lines of this type
accept shell-style globs in
place of normal path
names.
Mode
The file access mode to use when
creating this file or directory. If omitted or
when set to - the default is used: 0755 for
directories, 0644 for all other file
objects. For z, Z lines if omitted or when set
to - the file access mode will not be
modified. This parameter is ignored for x, r,
R, L lines.
UID, GID
The user and group to use for this file
or directory. This may either be a numeric
user/group ID or a user or group name. If
omitted or when set to - the default 0 (root)
is used. For z, Z lines when omitted or when set to -
the file ownership will not be modified.
These parameters are ignored for x, r, R, L lines.
Age
The date field, when set, is used to
decide what files to delete when cleaning. If
a file or directory is older than the current
time minus the age field it is deleted. The
field format is a series of integers each
followed by one of the following
postfixes for the respective time units:
s
min
h
d
w
ms
m
us
If multiple integers and units are specified the time
values are summed up.
The age field only applies to lines starting with
d, D and x. If omitted or set to - no automatic clean-up
is done.
Argument
For L lines determines the destination
path of the symlink. For c, b determines the
major/minor of the device node, with major and
minor formatted as integers, separated by :,
e.g. "1:3". For f, F, w may be used to specify
a short string that is written to the file,
suffixed by a newline. Ignored for all other
lines.
Example
/etc/tmpfiles.d/screen.conf example
screen needs two directories created at boot with specific modes and ownership.
d /var/run/screens 1777 root root 10d
d /var/run/uscreens 0755 root root 10d12h
See Also
systemd1,
systemd-tmpfiles8