NAME¶
machinectl - Control the systemd machine manager
SYNOPSIS¶
machinectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [NAME...]
OPTIONS¶
The following options are understood:
-p, --property=
When showing machine or image properties, limit the
output to certain properties as specified by the argument. If not specified,
all set properties are shown. The argument should be a property name, such as
"Name". If specified more than once, all properties with the
specified names are shown.
-a, --all
When showing machine or image properties, show all
properties regardless of whether they are set or not.
When listing VM or container images, do not suppress images
beginning in a dot character (".").
-l, --full
Do not ellipsize process tree entries.
--no-ask-password
Do not query the user for authentication for privileged
operations.
--kill-who=
When used with kill, choose which processes to
kill. Must be one of leader, or all to select whether to kill
only the leader process of the machine or all processes of the machine. If
omitted, defaults to all.
-s, --signal=
When used with kill, choose which signal to send
to selected processes. Must be one of the well-known signal specifiers, such
as SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGSTOP. If omitted, defaults to
SIGTERM.
--mkdir
When used with bind creates the destination
directory before applying the bind mount.
--read-only
When used with bind applies a read-only bind
mount.
-n, --lines=
When used with status, controls the number of
journal lines to show, counting from the most recent ones. Takes a positive
integer argument. Defaults to 10.
-o, --output=
When used with
status, controls the formatting of
the journal entries that are shown. For the available choices, see
journalctl(1). Defaults to "short".
--verify=
When downloading a container or VM image, specify whether
the image shall be verified before it is made available. Takes one of
"no", "checksum" and "signature". If
"no" no verification is done. If "checksum" is specified
the download is checked for integrity after transfer is complete, but no
signatures are verified. If "signature" is specified, the checksum
is verified and the images's signature is checked against a local keyring of
trustable vendors. It is strongly recommended to set this option to
"signature" if the server and protocol support this. Defaults to
"signature".
--force
When downloading a container or VM image, and a local
copy by the specified local machine name already exists, delete it first and
replace it by the newly downloaded image.
-H, --host=
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a
username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname
may optionally be suffixed by a container name, separated by ":",
which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This
will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names
may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.
-M, --machine=
Execute operation on a local container. Specify a
container name to connect to.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
--no-legend
Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the
footer with hints.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
COMMANDS¶
The following commands are understood:
Machine Commands¶
list
List currently running (online) virtual machines and
containers. To enumerate container images that can be started, use
list-images (see below).
status NAME...
Show terse runtime status information about one or more
virtual machines and containers, followed by the most recent log data from the
journal. This function is intended to generate human-readable output. If you
are looking for computer-parsable output, use show instead. Note that
the log data shown is reported by the virtual machine or container manager,
and frequently contains console output of the machine, but not necessarily
journal contents of the machine itself.
show NAME...
Show properties of one or more registered virtual
machines or containers or the manager itself. If no argument is specified,
properties of the manager will be shown. If an NAME is specified, properties
of this virtual machine or container are shown. By default, empty properties
are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific
properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be
used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use status if you
are looking for formatted human-readable output.
start NAME...
Start a container as a system service, using
systemd-nspawn(1). This starts systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated
for the specified machine name, similar to the effect of
systemctl
start on the service name.
systemd-nspawn looks for a container
image by the specified name in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see
below) and runs it. Use
list-images (see below), for listing available
container images to start.
Note that systemd-machined.service(8) also interfaces with
a variety of other container and VM managers, systemd-nspawn is just
one implementation of it. Most of the commands available in
machinectl may be used on containers or VMs controlled by other
managers, not just systemd-nspawn. Starting VMs and container images
on those managers requires manager-specific tools.
To interactively start a container on the command line with full
access to the container's console, please invoke systemd-nspawn
directly. To stop a running container use machinectl poweroff, see
below.
login NAME
Open an interactive terminal login session to a
container. This will create a TTY connection to a specific container and asks
for the execution of a getty on it. Note that this is only supported for
containers running
systemd(1) as init system.
This command will open a full login prompt on the container, which
then asks for username and password. Use systemd-run(1) with the
--machine= switch to invoke a single command, either interactively or
in the background within a local container.
enable NAME..., disable NAME...
Enable or disable a container as a system service to
start at system boot, using
systemd-nspawn(1). This enables or disables
systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified machine name, similar
to the effect of
systemctl enable or
systemctl disable on the
service name.
poweroff NAME...
Power off one or more containers. This will trigger a
reboot by sending SIGRTMIN+4 to the container's init process, which causes
systemd-compatible init systems to shut down cleanly. This operation does not
work on containers that do not run a
systemd(1)-compatible init system,
such as sysvinit. Use
terminate (see below) to immediately terminate a
container or VM, without cleanly shutting it down.
reboot NAME...
Reboot one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot
by sending SIGINT to the container's init process, which is roughly equivalent
to pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a non-containerized system, and is compatible with
containers running any system manager.
terminate NAME...
Immediately terminates a virtual machine or container,
without cleanly shutting it down. This kills all processes of the virtual
machine or container and deallocates all resources attached to that instance.
Use poweroff to issue a clean shutdown request.
kill NAME...
Send a signal to one or more processes of the virtual
machine or container. This means processes as seen by the host, not the
processes inside the virtual machine or container. Use --kill-who= to
select which process to kill. Use --signal= to select the signal to
send.
bind NAME PATH [PATH]
Bind mounts a directory from the host into the specified
container. The first directory argument is the source directory on the host,
the second directory argument the source directory on the host. When the
latter is omitted the destination path in the container is the same as the
source path on the host. When combined with the
--read-only switch a
ready-only bind mount is created. When combined with the
--mkdir switch
the destination path is first created before the mount is applied. Note that
this option is currently only supported for
systemd-nspawn(1)
containers.
copy-to NAME PATH [PATH]
Copies files or directories from the host system into a
running container. Takes a container name, followed by the source path on the
host and the destination path in the container. If the destination path is
omitted the same as the source path is used.
copy-from NAME PATH [PATH]
Copies files or directories from a container into the
host system. Takes a container name, followed by the source path in the
container the destination path on the host. If the destination path is omitted
the same as the source path is used.
Image Commands¶
list-images
Show a list of locally installed container and VM images.
This enumerates all raw disk images and container directories and subvolumes
in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below). Use start
(see above) to run a container off one of the listed images. Note that by
default containers whose name begins with a dot (".") are not shown.
To show these too, specify --all. Note that a special image
".host" always implicitly exists and refers to the image the host
itself is booted from.
image-status NAME...
Show terse status information about one or more container
or VM images. This function is intended to generate human-readable output. Use
show-image (see below) to generate computer-parsable output
instead.
show-image NAME...
Show properties of one or more registered virtual machine
or container images, or the manager itself. If no argument is specified,
properties of the manager will be shown. If an NAME is specified, properties
of this virtual machine or container image are shown. By default, empty
properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select
specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended
to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use
image-status if you are looking for formatted human-readable
output.
clone NAME NAME
Clones a container or disk image. The arguments specify
the name of the image to clone and the name of the newly cloned image. Note
that plain directory container images are cloned into subvolume images with
this command. Note that cloning a container or VM image is optimized for btrfs
file systems, and might not be efficient on others, due to file system
limitations.
rename NAME NAME
Renames a container or disk image. The arguments specify
the name of the image to rename and the new name of the image.
read-only NAME [BOOL]
Marks or (unmarks) a container or disk image read-only.
Takes a VM or container image name, followed by a boolean as arguments. If the
boolean is omitted, positive is implied, i.e. the image is marked
read-only.
remove NAME...
Removes one or more container or disk images. The special
image ".host", which refers to the host's own directory tree may not
be removed.
Image Transfer Commands¶
pull-tar URL [NAME]
Downloads a .tar container image from the specified URL,
and makes it available under the specified local machine name. The URL must be
of type "
http://" or "
https://", and must refer to a .tar,
.tar.gz, .tar.xz or .tar.bz2 archive file. If the local machine name is
omitted the name it is automatically derived from the last component of the
URL, with its suffix removed.
The image is verified before it is made available, unless
--verify=no is specified. Verification is done via SHA256SUMS and
SHA256SUMS.gpg files, that need to be made available on the same web server,
under the same URL as the .tar file, but with the last component (the
filename) of the URL replaced. With --verify=checksum only the SHA256
checksum for the file is verified, based on the SHA256SUMS file. With
--verify=signature the SHA256SUMS file is first verified with
detached GPG signature file SHA256SUMS.gpg. The public key for this
verification step needs to be available in
/usr/lib/systemd/import-pubring.gpg or /etc/systemd/import-pubring.gpg.
The container image will be downloaded and stored in a read-only
subvolume in /var/lib/machines/, that is named after the specified URL and
its HTTP etag. A writable snapshot is then taken from this subvolume, and
named after the specified local name. This behaviour ensures that creating
multiple container instances of the same URL is efficient, as multiple
downloads are not necessary. In order to create only the read-only image,
and avoid creating its writable snapshot, specify "-" as local
machine name.
Note that the read-only subvolume is prefixed with .tar-, and is
thus now shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.
Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not
abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.
pull-raw URL [NAME]
Downloads a .raw container or VM disk image from the
specified URL, and makes it available under the specified local machine name.
The URL must be of type "
http://" or "
https://". The
container image must either be a .qcow2 or raw disk image, optionally
compressed as .gz, .xz, or .bz2. If the local machine name is omitted the name
it is automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with its
suffix removed.
Image verification is identical for raw and tar images (see
above).
If the the downloaded image is in .qcow2 format it es converted
into a raw image file before it is made available.
Downloaded images of this type will be placed as read-only .raw
file in /var/lib/machines/. A local, writable (reflinked) copy is then made
under the specified local machine name. To omit creation of the local,
writable copy pass "-" as local machine name.
Similar to the behaviour of pull-tar, the read-only image
is prefixed with .raw-, and thus now shown by list-images, unless
--all is passed.
Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not
abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.
list-transfers
Shows a list of container or VM image downloads that are
currently in progress.
cancel-transfers ID...
Aborts download of the container or VM image with the
specified ID. To list ongoing transfers and their IDs, use
list-transfers.
FILES AND DIRECTORIES¶
Machine images are preferably stored in /var/lib/machines/, but
are also searched for in /usr/local/lib/machines/ and /usr/lib/machines/.
For compatibility reasons the directory /var/lib/container/ is searched,
too. Note that images stored below /usr are always considered read-only. It
is possible to symlink machines images from other directories into
/var/lib/machines/ to make them available for control with
machinectl.
Disk images are understood by systemd-nspawn(1) and
machinectl in three formats:
•A simple directory tree, containing the files and
directories of the container to boot.
•A subvolume (on btrfs file systems), which are
similar to the simple directories, described above. However, they have
additional benefits, such as efficient cloning and quota reporting.
•"Raw" disk images, i.e. binary images
of disks with a GPT or MBR partition table. Images of this type are regular
files with the suffix ".raw".
See systemd-nspawn(1) for more information on image
formats, in particular it's --directory= and --image=
options.
EXAMPLES¶
Example 1. Download an Ubuntu image and open a
shell in it
This downloads and verifies the specified .tar image, and then
uses systemd-nspawn(1) to open a shell in it.
Example 2. Download a Fedora image, set a root
password in it, start it as service
This downloads the specified .raw image with verification
disabled. Then a shell is opened in it and a root password is set.
Afterwards the shell is left, and the machine started as system service.
With the last command a login prompt into the container is requested.
EXIT STATUS¶
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
ENVIRONMENT¶
$SYSTEMD_PAGER
Pager to use when --no-pager is not given;
overrides $PAGER. Setting this to an empty string or the value
"cat" is equivalent to passing --no-pager.
$SYSTEMD_LESS
Override the default options passed to less
("FRSXMK").