systemd systemd-firstboot 1 systemd-firstboot systemd-firstboot.service Initialize basic system settings on or before the first boot-up of a system systemd-firstboot OPTIONS systemd-firstboot.service systemd-firstboot initializes basic system settings interactively during the first boot, or non-interactively on an offline system image. The service is started during boot if ConditionFirstBoot=yes is met, which essentially means that /etc/ is unpopulated, see systemd.unit5 for details. The following settings may be configured: The machine ID of the system The system locale, more specifically the two locale variables LANG= and LC_MESSAGES The system keyboard map The system time zone The system hostname The kernel command line used when installing kernel images The root user's password and shell Each of the fields may either be queried interactively by users, set non-interactively on the tool's command line, or be copied from a host system that is used to set up the system image. If a setting is already initialized, it will not be overwritten and the user will not be prompted for the setting. Note that this tool operates directly on the file system and does not involve any running system services, unlike localectl1, timedatectl1 or hostnamectl1. This allows systemd-firstboot to operate on mounted but not booted disk images and in early boot. It is not recommended to use systemd-firstboot on the running system after it has been set up. The following options are understood: --root=root Takes a directory path as an argument. All paths will be prefixed with the given alternate root path, including config search paths. This is useful to operate on a system image mounted to the specified directory instead of the host system itself. --image=path Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If specified all operations are applied to file system in the indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but operates on file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The disk image should either contain just a file system or a set of file systems within a GPT partition table, following the Discoverable Partitions Specification. For further information on supported disk images, see systemd-nspawn1's switch of the same name. --locale=LOCALE --locale-messages=LOCALE Sets the system locale, more specifically the LANG= and LC_MESSAGES settings. The argument should be a valid locale identifier, such as de_DE.UTF-8. This controls the locale.conf5 configuration file. --keymap=KEYMAP Sets the system keyboard layout. The argument should be a valid keyboard map, such as de-latin1. This controls the KEYMAP entry in the vconsole.conf5 configuration file. --timezone=TIMEZONE Sets the system time zone. The argument should be a valid time zone identifier, such as Europe/Berlin. This controls the localtime5 symlink. --hostname=HOSTNAME Sets the system hostname. The argument should be a hostname, compatible with DNS. This controls the hostname5 configuration file. --setup-machine-id Initialize the system's machine ID to a random ID. This controls the machine-id5 file. This option only works in combination with --root= or --image=. On a running system, machine-id is written by the manager with help from systemd-machine-id-commit.service8. --machine-id=ID Set the system's machine ID to the specified value. The same restrictions apply as to --setup-machine-id. --root-password=PASSWORD --root-password-file=PATH --root-password-hashed=HASHED_PASSWORD Sets the password of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd5 and shadow5 files. This setting exists in three forms: --root-password= accepts the password to set directly on the command line, --root-password-file= reads it from a file and --root-password-hashed= accepts an already hashed password on the command line. See shadow5 for more information on the format of the hashed password. Note that it is not recommended to specify plaintext passwords on the command line, as other users might be able to see them simply by invoking ps1. --root-shell=SHELL Sets the shell of the system's root user. This creates/modifies the passwd5 file. --kernel-command-line=CMDLINE Sets the system's kernel command line. This controls the /etc/kernel/cmdline file which is used by kernel-install8. --prompt-locale --prompt-keymap --prompt-timezone --prompt-hostname --prompt-root-password --prompt-root-shell Prompt the user interactively for a specific basic setting. Note that any explicit configuration settings specified on the command line take precedence, and the user is not prompted for it. --prompt Query the user for locale, keymap, timezone, hostname, root's password, and root's shell. This is equivalent to specifying --prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap, --prompt-timezone, --prompt-hostname, --prompt-root-password, --prompt-root-shell in combination. --copy-locale --copy-keymap --copy-timezone --copy-root-password --copy-root-shell Copy a specific basic setting from the host. This only works in combination with --root= or --image=. --copy Copy locale, keymap, time zone, root password and shell from the host. This is equivalent to specifying --copy-locale, --copy-keymap, --copy-timezone, --copy-root-password, --copy-root-shell in combination. --force Write configuration even if the relevant files already exist. Without this option, systemd-firstboot doesn't modify or replace existing files. Note that when configuring the root account, even with this option, systemd-firstboot only modifies the entry of the root user, leaving other entries in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow intact. --reset If specified, all existing files that are configured by systemd-firstboot are removed. Note that the files are removed regardless of whether they'll be configured with a new value or not. This operation ensures that the next boot of the image will be considered a first boot, and systemd-firstboot will prompt again to configure each of the removed files. --delete-root-password Removes the password of the system's root user, enabling login as root without a password unless the root account is locked. Note that this is extremely insecure and hence this option should not be used lightly. --welcome= Takes a boolean argument. By default when prompting the user for configuration options a brief welcome text is shown before the first question is asked. Pass false to this option to turn off the welcome text. systemd-firstboot supports the service credentials logic as implemented by ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see systemd.exec1 for details). The following credentials are used when passed in: passwd.hashed-password.root passwd.plaintext-password.root A hashed or plaintext version of the root password to use, in place of prompting the user. These credentials are equivalent to the same ones defined for the systemd-sysusers.service8 service. passwd.shell.root Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account. Equivalent to the credential of the same name defined for the systemd-sysusers.service8 service. firstboot.locale firstboot.locale-messages These credentials specify the locale settings to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user. firstboot.keymap This credential specifies the keyboard setting to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user. Note the relationship to the vconsole.keymap credential understood by systemd-vconsole-setup.service8: both ultimately affect the same setting, but firstboot.keymap is written into /etc/vconsole.conf on first boot (if not already configured), and then read from there by systemd-vconsole-setup, while vconsole.keymap is read on every boot, and is not persisted to disk (but any configuration in vconsole.conf will take precedence if present). firstboot.timezone This credential specifies the system timezone setting to set during first boot, in place of prompting the user. Note that by default the systemd-firstboot.service unit file is set up to inherit the listed credentials from the service manager. Thus, when invoking a container with an unpopulated /etc/ for the first time it is possible to configure the root user's password to be systemd like this: # systemd-nspawn --image=… --set-credential=firstboot.locale:de_DE.UTF-8 … Note that these credentials are only read and applied during the first boot process. Once they are applied they remain applied for subsequent boots, and the credentials are not considered anymore. On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise. systemd.firstboot= Takes a boolean argument, defaults to on. If off, systemd-firstboot.service won't interactively query the user for basic settings at first boot, even if those settings are not initialized yet. systemd1, locale.conf5, vconsole.conf5, localtime5, hostname5, machine-id5, shadow5, systemd-machine-id-setup1, localectl1, timedatectl1, hostnamectl1