systemd systemd.resource-control 5 systemd.resource-control Resource control unit settings slice.slice, scope.scope, service.service, socket.socket, mount.mount, swap.swap Unit configuration files for services, slices, scopes, sockets, mount points, and swap devices share a subset of configuration options for resource control of spawned processes. Internally, this relies on the Linux Control Groups (cgroups) kernel concept for organizing processes in a hierarchical tree of named groups for the purpose of resource management. This man page lists the configuration options shared by those six unit types. See systemd.unit5 for the common options of all unit configuration files, and systemd.slice5, systemd.scope5, systemd.service5, systemd.socket5, systemd.mount5, and systemd.swap5 for more information on the specific unit configuration files. The resource control configuration options are configured in the [Slice], [Scope], [Service], [Socket], [Mount], or [Swap] sections, depending on the unit type. In addition, options which control resources available to programs executed by systemd are listed in systemd.exec5. Those options complement options listed here. See the New Control Group Interfaces for an introduction on how to make use of resource control APIs from programs. The following dependencies are implicitly added: Units with the Slice= setting set automatically acquire Requires= and After= dependencies on the specified slice unit. The unified control group hierarchy is the new version of kernel control group interface, see cgroup-v2.txt. Depending on the resource type, there are differences in resource control capabilities. Also, because of interface changes, some resource types have separate set of options on the unified hierarchy. CPU CPUWeight= and StartupCPUWeight= replace CPUShares= and StartupCPUShares=, respectively. The cpuacct controller does not exist separately on the unified hierarchy. Memory MemoryMax= replaces MemoryLimit=. MemoryLow= and MemoryHigh= are effective only on unified hierarchy. IO IO prefixed settings are a superset of and replace BlockIO prefixed ones. On unified hierarchy, IO resource control also applies to buffered writes. To ease the transition, there is best-effort translation between the two versions of settings. For each controller, if any of the settings for the unified hierarchy are present, all settings for the legacy hierarchy are ignored. If the resulting settings are for the other type of hierarchy, the configurations are translated before application. Legacy control group hierarchy (see cgroups.txt), also called cgroup-v1, doesn't allow safe delegation of controllers to unprivileged processes. If the system uses the legacy control group hierarchy, resource control is disabled for systemd user instance, see systemd1. Units of the types listed above can have settings for resource control configuration: CPUAccounting= Turn on CPU usage accounting for this unit. Takes a boolean argument. Note that turning on CPU accounting for one unit will also implicitly turn it on for all units contained in the same slice and for all its parent slices and the units contained therein. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultCPUAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. CPUWeight=weight StartupCPUWeight=weight Assign the specified CPU time weight to the processes executed, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. These options take an integer value and control the cpu.weight control group attribute. The allowed range is 1 to 10000. Defaults to 100. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt and sched-design-CFS.txt. The available CPU time is split up among all units within one slice relative to their CPU time weight. While StartupCPUWeight= only applies to the startup phase of the system, CPUWeight= applies to normal runtime of the system, and if the former is not set also to the startup phase. Using StartupCPUWeight= allows prioritizing specific services at boot-up differently than during normal runtime. Implies CPUAccounting=true. These settings replace CPUShares= and StartupCPUShares=. CPUQuota= Assign the specified CPU time quota to the processes executed. Takes a percentage value, suffixed with "%". The percentage specifies how much CPU time the unit shall get at maximum, relative to the total CPU time available on one CPU. Use values > 100% for allotting CPU time on more than one CPU. This controls the cpu.max attribute on the unified control group hierarchy and cpu.cfs_quota_us on legacy. For details about these control group attributes, see cgroup-v2.txt and sched-design-CFS.txt. Example: CPUQuota=20% ensures that the executed processes will never get more than 20% CPU time on one CPU. Implies CPUAccounting=true. MemoryAccounting= Turn on process and kernel memory accounting for this unit. Takes a boolean argument. Note that turning on memory accounting for one unit will also implicitly turn it on for all units contained in the same slice and for all its parent slices and the units contained therein. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultMemoryAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. MemoryMin=bytes Specify the memory usage protection of the executed processes in this unit. If the memory usages of this unit and all its ancestors are below their minimum boundaries, this unit's memory won't be reclaimed. Takes a memory size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified memory size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Alternatively, a percentage value may be specified, which is taken relative to the installed physical memory on the system. This controls the memory.min control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting is supported only if the unified control group hierarchy is used and disables MemoryLimit=. MemoryLow=bytes Specify the best-effort memory usage protection of the executed processes in this unit. If the memory usages of this unit and all its ancestors are below their low boundaries, this unit's memory won't be reclaimed as long as memory can be reclaimed from unprotected units. Takes a memory size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified memory size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Alternatively, a percentage value may be specified, which is taken relative to the installed physical memory on the system. This controls the memory.low control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting is supported only if the unified control group hierarchy is used and disables MemoryLimit=. MemoryHigh=bytes Specify the high limit on memory usage of the executed processes in this unit. Memory usage may go above the limit if unavoidable, but the processes are heavily slowed down and memory is taken away aggressively in such cases. This is the main mechanism to control memory usage of a unit. Takes a memory size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified memory size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Alternatively, a percentage value may be specified, which is taken relative to the installed physical memory on the system. If assigned the special value infinity, no memory limit is applied. This controls the memory.high control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting is supported only if the unified control group hierarchy is used and disables MemoryLimit=. MemoryMax=bytes Specify the absolute limit on memory usage of the executed processes in this unit. If memory usage cannot be contained under the limit, out-of-memory killer is invoked inside the unit. It is recommended to use MemoryHigh= as the main control mechanism and use MemoryMax= as the last line of defense. Takes a memory size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified memory size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Alternatively, a percentage value may be specified, which is taken relative to the installed physical memory on the system. If assigned the special value infinity, no memory limit is applied. This controls the memory.max control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting replaces MemoryLimit=. MemorySwapMax=bytes Specify the absolute limit on swap usage of the executed processes in this unit. Takes a swap size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified swap size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. If assigned the special value infinity, no swap limit is applied. This controls the memory.swap.max control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting is supported only if the unified control group hierarchy is used and disables MemoryLimit=. TasksAccounting= Turn on task accounting for this unit. Takes a boolean argument. If enabled, the system manager will keep track of the number of tasks in the unit. The number of tasks accounted this way includes both kernel threads and userspace processes, with each thread counting individually. Note that turning on tasks accounting for one unit will also implicitly turn it on for all units contained in the same slice and for all its parent slices and the units contained therein. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultTasksAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. TasksMax=N Specify the maximum number of tasks that may be created in the unit. This ensures that the number of tasks accounted for the unit (see above) stays below a specific limit. This either takes an absolute number of tasks or a percentage value that is taken relative to the configured maximum number of tasks on the system. If assigned the special value infinity, no tasks limit is applied. This controls the pids.max control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see pids.txt. Implies TasksAccounting=true. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultTasksMax= in systemd-system.conf5. IOAccounting= Turn on Block I/O accounting for this unit, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a boolean argument. Note that turning on block I/O accounting for one unit will also implicitly turn it on for all units contained in the same slice and all for its parent slices and the units contained therein. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultIOAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. This setting replaces BlockIOAccounting= and disables settings prefixed with BlockIO or StartupBlockIO. IOWeight=weight StartupIOWeight=weight Set the default overall block I/O weight for the executed processes, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a single weight value (between 1 and 10000) to set the default block I/O weight. This controls the io.weight control group attribute, which defaults to 100. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. The available I/O bandwidth is split up among all units within one slice relative to their block I/O weight. While StartupIOWeight= only applies to the startup phase of the system, IOWeight= applies to the later runtime of the system, and if the former is not set also to the startup phase. This allows prioritizing specific services at boot-up differently than during runtime. Implies IOAccounting=true. These settings replace BlockIOWeight= and StartupBlockIOWeight= and disable settings prefixed with BlockIO or StartupBlockIO. IODeviceWeight=device weight Set the per-device overall block I/O weight for the executed processes, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a space-separated pair of a file path and a weight value to specify the device specific weight value, between 1 and 10000. (Example: "/dev/sda 1000"). The file path may be specified as path to a block device node or as any other file, in which case the backing block device of the file system of the file is determined. This controls the io.weight control group attribute, which defaults to 100. Use this option multiple times to set weights for multiple devices. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies IOAccounting=true. This setting replaces BlockIODeviceWeight= and disables settings prefixed with BlockIO or StartupBlockIO. IOReadBandwidthMax=device bytes IOWriteBandwidthMax=device bytes Set the per-device overall block I/O bandwidth maximum limit for the executed processes, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. This limit is not work-conserving and the executed processes are not allowed to use more even if the device has idle capacity. Takes a space-separated pair of a file path and a bandwidth value (in bytes per second) to specify the device specific bandwidth. The file path may be a path to a block device node, or as any other file in which case the backing block device of the file system of the file is used. If the bandwidth is suffixed with K, M, G, or T, the specified bandwidth is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes, respectively, to the base of 1000. (Example: "/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0 5M"). This controls the io.max control group attributes. Use this option multiple times to set bandwidth limits for multiple devices. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies IOAccounting=true. These settings replace BlockIOReadBandwidth= and BlockIOWriteBandwidth= and disable settings prefixed with BlockIO or StartupBlockIO. IOReadIOPSMax=device IOPS IOWriteIOPSMax=device IOPS Set the per-device overall block I/O IOs-Per-Second maximum limit for the executed processes, if the unified control group hierarchy is used on the system. This limit is not work-conserving and the executed processes are not allowed to use more even if the device has idle capacity. Takes a space-separated pair of a file path and an IOPS value to specify the device specific IOPS. The file path may be a path to a block device node, or as any other file in which case the backing block device of the file system of the file is used. If the IOPS is suffixed with K, M, G, or T, the specified IOPS is parsed as KiloIOPS, MegaIOPS, GigaIOPS, or TeraIOPS, respectively, to the base of 1000. (Example: "/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0 1K"). This controls the io.max control group attributes. Use this option multiple times to set IOPS limits for multiple devices. For details about this control group attribute, see cgroup-v2.txt. Implies IOAccounting=true. These settings are supported only if the unified control group hierarchy is used and disable settings prefixed with BlockIO or StartupBlockIO. IPAccounting= Takes a boolean argument. If true, turns on IPv4 and IPv6 network traffic accounting for packets sent or received by the unit. When this option is turned on, all IPv4 and IPv6 sockets created by any process of the unit are accounted for. When this option is used in socket units, it applies to all IPv4 and IPv6 sockets associated with it (including both listening and connection sockets where this applies). Note that for socket-activated services, this configuration setting and the accounting data of the service unit and the socket unit are kept separate, and displayed separately. No propagation of the setting and the collected statistics is done, in either direction. Moreover, any traffic sent or received on any of the socket unit's sockets is accounted to the socket unit — and never to the service unit it might have activated, even if the socket is used by it. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultIPAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. IPAddressAllow=ADDRESS[/PREFIXLENGTH]… IPAddressDeny=ADDRESS[/PREFIXLENGTH]… Turn on address range network traffic filtering for packets sent and received over AF_INET and AF_INET6 sockets. Both directives take a space separated list of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, each optionally suffixed with an address prefix length (separated by a / character). If the latter is omitted, the address is considered a host address, i.e. the prefix covers the whole address (32 for IPv4, 128 for IPv6). The access lists configured with this option are applied to all sockets created by processes of this unit (or in the case of socket units, associated with it). The lists are implicitly combined with any lists configured for any of the parent slice units this unit might be a member of. By default all access lists are empty. When configured the lists are enforced as follows: Access will be granted in case its destination/source address matches any entry in the IPAddressAllow= setting. Otherwise, access will be denied in case its destination/source address matches any entry in the IPAddressDeny= setting. Otherwise, access will be granted. In order to implement a whitelisting IP firewall, it is recommended to use a IPAddressDeny=any setting on an upper-level slice unit (such as the root slice -.slice or the slice containing all system services system.slice – see systemd.special7 for details on these slice units), plus individual per-service IPAddressAllow= lines permitting network access to relevant services, and only them. Note that for socket-activated services, the IP access list configured on the socket unit applies to all sockets associated with it directly, but not to any sockets created by the ultimately activated services for it. Conversely, the IP access list configured for the service is not applied to any sockets passed into the service via socket activation. Thus, it is usually a good idea, to replicate the IP access lists on both the socket and the service unit, however it often makes sense to maintain one list more open and the other one more restricted, depending on the usecase. If these settings are used multiple times in the same unit the specified lists are combined. If an empty string is assigned to these settings the specific access list is reset and all previous settings undone. In place of explicit IPv4 or IPv6 address and prefix length specifications a small set of symbolic names may be used. The following names are defined: Symbolic Name Definition Meaning any 0.0.0.0/0 ::/0 Any host localhost 127.0.0.0/8 ::1/128 All addresses on the local loopback link-local 169.254.0.0/16 fe80::/64 All link-local IP addresses multicast 224.0.0.0/4 ff00::/8 All IP multicasting addresses Note that these settings might not be supported on some systems (for example if eBPF control group support is not enabled in the underlying kernel or container manager). These settings will have no effect in that case. If compatibility with such systems is desired it is hence recommended to not exclusively rely on them for IP security. DeviceAllow= Control access to specific device nodes by the executed processes. Takes two space-separated strings: a device node specifier followed by a combination of r, w, m to control reading, writing, or creation of the specific device node(s) by the unit (mknod), respectively. This controls the devices.allow and devices.deny control group attributes. For details about these control group attributes, see devices.txt. The device node specifier is either a path to a device node in the file system, starting with /dev/, or a string starting with either char- or block- followed by a device group name, as listed in /proc/devices. The latter is useful to whitelist all current and future devices belonging to a specific device group at once. The device group is matched according to filename globbing rules, you may hence use the * and ? wildcards. Examples: /dev/sda5 is a path to a device node, referring to an ATA or SCSI block device. char-pts and char-alsa are specifiers for all pseudo TTYs and all ALSA sound devices, respectively. char-cpu/* is a specifier matching all CPU related device groups. DevicePolicy=auto|closed|strict Control the policy for allowing device access: strict means to only allow types of access that are explicitly specified. closed in addition, allows access to standard pseudo devices including /dev/null, /dev/zero, /dev/full, /dev/random, and /dev/urandom. auto in addition, allows access to all devices if no explicit DeviceAllow= is present. This is the default. Slice= The name of the slice unit to place the unit in. Defaults to system.slice for all non-instantiated units of all unit types (except for slice units themselves see below). Instance units are by default placed in a subslice of system.slice that is named after the template name. This option may be used to arrange systemd units in a hierarchy of slices each of which might have resource settings applied. For units of type slice, the only accepted value for this setting is the parent slice. Since the name of a slice unit implies the parent slice, it is hence redundant to ever set this parameter directly for slice units. Special care should be taken when relying on the default slice assignment in templated service units that have DefaultDependencies=no set, see systemd.service5, section "Default Dependencies" for details. Delegate= Turns on delegation of further resource control partitioning to processes of the unit. Units where this is enabled may create and manage their own private subhierarchy of control groups below the control group of the unit itself. For unprivileged services (i.e. those using the User= setting) the unit's control group will be made accessible to the relevant user. When enabled the service manager will refrain from manipulating control groups or moving processes below the unit's control group, so that a clear concept of ownership is established: the control group tree above the unit's control group (i.e. towards the root control group) is owned and managed by the service manager of the host, while the control group tree below the unit's control group is owned and managed by the unit itself. Takes either a boolean argument or a list of control group controller names. If true, delegation is turned on, and all supported controllers are enabled for the unit, making them available to the unit's processes for management. If false, delegation is turned off entirely (and no additional controllers are enabled). If set to a list of controllers, delegation is turned on, and the specified controllers are enabled for the unit. Note that additional controllers than the ones specified might be made available as well, depending on configuration of the containing slice unit or other units contained in it. Note that assigning the empty string will enable delegation, but reset the list of controllers, all assignments prior to this will have no effect. Defaults to false. Note that controller delegation to less privileged code is only safe on the unified control group hierarchy. Accordingly, access to the specified controllers will not be granted to unprivileged services on the legacy hierarchy, even when requested. The following controller names may be specified: cpu, cpuacct, io, blkio, memory, devices, pids. Not all of these controllers are available on all kernels however, and some are specific to the unified hierarchy while others are specific to the legacy hierarchy. Also note that the kernel might support further controllers, which aren't covered here yet as delegation is either not supported at all for them or not defined cleanly. The following options are deprecated. Use the indicated superseding options instead: CPUShares=weight StartupCPUShares=weight Assign the specified CPU time share weight to the processes executed. These options take an integer value and control the cpu.shares control group attribute. The allowed range is 2 to 262144. Defaults to 1024. For details about this control group attribute, see sched-design-CFS.txt. The available CPU time is split up among all units within one slice relative to their CPU time share weight. While StartupCPUShares= only applies to the startup phase of the system, CPUShares= applies to normal runtime of the system, and if the former is not set also to the startup phase. Using StartupCPUShares= allows prioritizing specific services at boot-up differently than during normal runtime. Implies CPUAccounting=true. These settings are deprecated. Use CPUWeight= and StartupCPUWeight= instead. MemoryLimit=bytes Specify the limit on maximum memory usage of the executed processes. The limit specifies how much process and kernel memory can be used by tasks in this unit. Takes a memory size in bytes. If the value is suffixed with K, M, G or T, the specified memory size is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes (with the base 1024), respectively. Alternatively, a percentage value may be specified, which is taken relative to the installed physical memory on the system. If assigned the special value infinity, no memory limit is applied. This controls the memory.limit_in_bytes control group attribute. For details about this control group attribute, see memory.txt. Implies MemoryAccounting=true. This setting is deprecated. Use MemoryMax= instead. BlockIOAccounting= Turn on Block I/O accounting for this unit, if the legacy control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a boolean argument. Note that turning on block I/O accounting for one unit will also implicitly turn it on for all units contained in the same slice and all for its parent slices and the units contained therein. The system default for this setting may be controlled with DefaultBlockIOAccounting= in systemd-system.conf5. This setting is deprecated. Use IOAccounting= instead. BlockIOWeight=weight StartupBlockIOWeight=weight Set the default overall block I/O weight for the executed processes, if the legacy control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a single weight value (between 10 and 1000) to set the default block I/O weight. This controls the blkio.weight control group attribute, which defaults to 500. For details about this control group attribute, see blkio-controller.txt. The available I/O bandwidth is split up among all units within one slice relative to their block I/O weight. While StartupBlockIOWeight= only applies to the startup phase of the system, BlockIOWeight= applies to the later runtime of the system, and if the former is not set also to the startup phase. This allows prioritizing specific services at boot-up differently than during runtime. Implies BlockIOAccounting=true. These settings are deprecated. Use IOWeight= and StartupIOWeight= instead. BlockIODeviceWeight=device weight Set the per-device overall block I/O weight for the executed processes, if the legacy control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a space-separated pair of a file path and a weight value to specify the device specific weight value, between 10 and 1000. (Example: "/dev/sda 500"). The file path may be specified as path to a block device node or as any other file, in which case the backing block device of the file system of the file is determined. This controls the blkio.weight_device control group attribute, which defaults to 1000. Use this option multiple times to set weights for multiple devices. For details about this control group attribute, see blkio-controller.txt. Implies BlockIOAccounting=true. This setting is deprecated. Use IODeviceWeight= instead. BlockIOReadBandwidth=device bytes BlockIOWriteBandwidth=device bytes Set the per-device overall block I/O bandwidth limit for the executed processes, if the legacy control group hierarchy is used on the system. Takes a space-separated pair of a file path and a bandwidth value (in bytes per second) to specify the device specific bandwidth. The file path may be a path to a block device node, or as any other file in which case the backing block device of the file system of the file is used. If the bandwidth is suffixed with K, M, G, or T, the specified bandwidth is parsed as Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, or Terabytes, respectively, to the base of 1000. (Example: "/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:1f.2-scsi-0:0:0:0 5M"). This controls the blkio.throttle.read_bps_device and blkio.throttle.write_bps_device control group attributes. Use this option multiple times to set bandwidth limits for multiple devices. For details about these control group attributes, see blkio-controller.txt. Implies BlockIOAccounting=true. These settings are deprecated. Use IOReadBandwidthMax= and IOWriteBandwidthMax= instead. systemd1, systemd.unit5, systemd.service5, systemd.slice5, systemd.scope5, systemd.socket5, systemd.mount5, systemd.swap5, systemd.exec5, systemd.directives7, systemd.special7, The documentation for control groups and specific controllers in the Linux kernel: cgroups.txt, cpuacct.txt, memory.txt, blkio-controller.txt.