path: root/man/machinectl.xml

<?xml version='1.0'?> <!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
        "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">

<!--
  This file is part of systemd.

  Copyright 2013 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek

  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

  systemd is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
  Lesser General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
  along with systemd; If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
-->

<refentry id="machinectl" conditional='ENABLE_MACHINED'
          xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">

        <refentryinfo>
                <title>machinectl</title>
                <productname>systemd</productname>

                <authorgroup>
                        <author>
                                <contrib>Developer</contrib>
                                <firstname>Lennart</firstname>
                                <surname>Poettering</surname>
                                <email>lennart@poettering.net</email>
                        </author>
                </authorgroup>
        </refentryinfo>

        <refmeta>
                <refentrytitle>machinectl</refentrytitle>
                <manvolnum>1</manvolnum>
        </refmeta>

        <refnamediv>
                <refname>machinectl</refname>
                <refpurpose>Control the systemd machine manager</refpurpose>
        </refnamediv>

        <refsynopsisdiv>
                <cmdsynopsis>
                        <command>machinectl</command>
                        <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">OPTIONS</arg>
                        <arg choice="req">COMMAND</arg>
                        <arg choice="opt" rep="repeat">NAME</arg>
                </cmdsynopsis>
        </refsynopsisdiv>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Description</title>

                <para><command>machinectl</command> may be used to
                introspect and control the state of the
                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                virtual machine and container registration manager <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-machined.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
        </refsect1>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Options</title>

                <para>The following options are understood:</para>

                <variablelist>
                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-p</option></term>
                                <term><option>--property=</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <literal>Name</literal>. If specified
                                more than once, all properties with
                                the specified names are
                                shown.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-a</option></term>
                                <term><option>--all</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When showing machine
                                or image properties, show all
                                properties regardless of whether they
                                are set or not.</para>

                                <para>When listing VM or container
                                images, do not suppress images
                                beginning in a dot character
                                (<literal>.</literal>).</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-l</option></term>
                                <term><option>--full</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>Do not ellipsize
                                process tree entries.</para>
                                </listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>--no-ask-password</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>Do not query the user
                                for authentication for privileged
                                operations.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>--kill-who=</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>kill</command>,
                                choose which processes to kill. Must
                                be one of <option>leader</option>, or
                                <option>all</option> to select whether
                                to kill only the leader process of the
                                machine or all processes of the
                                machine. If omitted, defaults to
                                <option>all</option>.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-s</option></term>
                                <term><option>--signal=</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>kill</command>, choose
                                which signal to send to selected
                                processes. Must be one of the
                                well-known signal specifiers, such as
                                <constant>SIGTERM</constant>,
                                <constant>SIGINT</constant> or
                                <constant>SIGSTOP</constant>. If
                                omitted, defaults to
                                <constant>SIGTERM</constant>.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>--mkdir</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>bind</command> creates the
                                destination directory before applying
                                the bind mount.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>


                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>--read-only</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>bind</command> applies a
                                read-only bind
                                mount.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>


                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-n</option></term>
                                <term><option>--lines=</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>status</command>, controls
                                the number of journal lines to show,
                                counting from the most recent
                                ones. Takes a positive integer
                                argument. Defaults to 10.</para>
                                </listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><option>-o</option></term>
                                <term><option>--output=</option></term>

                                <listitem><para>When used with
                                <command>status</command>, controls
                                the formatting of the journal entries
                                that are shown. For the available
                                choices, see
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>journalctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
                                Defaults to
                                <literal>short</literal>.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <xi:include href="user-system-options.xml" xpointer="host" />
                        <xi:include href="user-system-options.xml" xpointer="machine" />

                        <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="no-pager" />
                        <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="no-legend" />
                        <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="help" />
                        <xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="version" />
                </variablelist>
        </refsect1>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Commands</title>

                <para>The following commands are understood:</para>

                <refsect2><title>Machine Commands</title><variablelist>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>list</command></term>

                                <listitem><para>List currently running
                                (online) virtual machines and
                                containers. To enumerate container
                                images that can be started,
                                use <command>list-images</command>
                                (see below).</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>status</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <command>show</command> 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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>show</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <option>--all</option> to show those
                                too. To select specific properties to
                                show, use
                                <option>--property=</option>. This
                                command is intended to be used
                                whenever computer-parsable output is
                                required. Use
                                <command>status</command> if you are
                                looking for formatted human-readable
                                output.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>start</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>Start a container as a
                                system service, using
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
                                This starts
                                <filename>systemd-nspawn@.service</filename>,
                                instantiated for the specified machine
                                name, similar to the effect of
                                <command>systemctl start</command> on
                                the service
                                name. <command>systemd-nspawn</command>
                                looks for a container image by the
                                specified name in
                                <filename>/var/lib/machines/</filename>
                                (and other search paths, see below) and runs
                                it. Use <command>list-images</command>
                                (see below), for listing available
                                container images to start.</para>

                                <para>Note that
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-machined.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                                also interfaces with a variety of
                                other container and VM managers,
                                <command>systemd-nspawn</command> is
                                just one implementation of it. Most of
                                the commands available in
                                <command>machinectl</command> may be
                                used on containers or VMs controlled
                                by other managers, not just
                                <command>systemd-nspawn</command>. Starting
                                VMs and container images on those
                                managers requires manager-specific
                                tools.</para>

                                <para>To interactively start a
                                container on the command line with
                                full access to the container's
                                console, please invoke
                                <command>systemd-nspawn</command>
                                directly. To stop a running container
                                use <command>machinectl
                                poweroff</command>, see
                                below.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>login</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable></term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                                as init system.</para>

                                <para>This command will open a full
                                login prompt on the container, which
                                then asks for username and
                                password. Use
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-run</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                                with the <option>--machine=</option>
                                switch to invoke a single command,
                                either interactively or in the
                                background within a local
                                container.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>enable</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>
                                <term><command>disable</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>Enable or disable a
                                container as a system service to start
                                at system boot, using
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
                                This enables or disables
                                <filename>systemd-nspawn@.service</filename>,
                                instantiated for the specified machine
                                name, similar to the effect of
                                <command>systemctl enable</command> or
                                <command>systemctl disable</command>
                                on the service name.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>poweroff</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>-compatible
                                init system, such as sysvinit. Use
                                <command>terminate</command> (see
                                below) to immediately terminate a
                                container or VM, without cleanly
                                shutting it down.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>reboot</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>terminate</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <command>poweroff</command> to issue a
                                clean shutdown request.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>kill</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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 <option>--kill-who=</option> to
                                select which process to kill. Use
                                <option>--signal=</option> to select
                                the signal to send.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>bind</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> <replaceable>PATH</replaceable> [<replaceable>PATH</replaceable>]</term>

                                <listitem><para>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 <option>--read-only</option>
                                switch a ready-only bind mount is
                                created. When combined with the
                                <option>--mkdir</option> switch the
                                destination path is first created
                                before the mount is applied. Note that
                                this option is currently only
                                supported for
                                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                                containers.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>copy-to</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> <replaceable>PATH</replaceable> [<replaceable>PATH</replaceable>]</term>

                                <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>


                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>copy-from</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> <replaceable>PATH</replaceable> [<replaceable>PATH</replaceable>]</term>

                                <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>
                </variablelist></refsect2>

                <refsect2><title>Image Commands</title><variablelist>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>list-images</command></term>

                                <listitem><para>Show a list of locally
                                installed container and VM
                                images. This enumerates all raw disk
                                images and container directories and
                                subvolumes in
                                <filename>/var/lib/machines/</filename> (and other search paths, see below). Use
                                <command>start</command> (see above)
                                to run a container off one of the
                                listed images. Note that by default
                                containers whose name begins with a
                                dot (<literal>.</literal>) are not
                                shown. To show these too, specify
                                <option>--all</option>. Note that a
                                special image <literal>.host</literal>
                                always implicitly exists and refers to
                                the image the host itself is booted
                                from.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>image-status</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>Show terse status
                                information about one or more
                                container or VM images. This function
                                is intended to generate human-readable
                                output. Use
                                <command>show-image</command> (see
                                below) to generate computer-parsable
                                output instead.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>show-image</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>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
                                <option>--all</option> to show those
                                too. To select specific properties to
                                show, use
                                <option>--property=</option>. This
                                command is intended to be used
                                whenever computer-parsable output is
                                required. Use
                                <command>image-status</command> if you
                                are looking for formatted
                                human-readable
                                output.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>clone</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable></term>

                                <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>rename</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable></term>

                                <listitem><para>Renames a container or
                                disk image. The arguments specify the
                                name of the image to rename and the
                                new name of the
                                image.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>

                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>read-only</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable> [<replaceable>BOOL</replaceable>]</term>

                                <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>


                        <varlistentry>
                                <term><command>remove</command> <replaceable>NAME</replaceable>...</term>

                                <listitem><para>Removes one or more
                                container or disk images. The special
                                image <literal>.host</literal>, which
                                refers to the host's own directory
                                tree may not be
                                removed.</para></listitem>
                        </varlistentry>


                </variablelist></refsect2>

        </refsect1>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Files and Directories</title>

                <para>Machine images are preferably stored in
                <filename>/var/lib/machines/</filename>, but are also
                searched for in
                <filename>/usr/local/lib/machines/</filename> and
                <filename>/usr/lib/machines/</filename>. For
                compatibility reasons the directory
                <filename>/var/lib/container/</filename> is searched,
                too. Note that images stored below
                <filename>/usr</filename> are always considered
                read-only. It is possible to symlink machines images
                from other directories into
                <filename>/var/lib/machines/</filename> to make them
                available for control with
                <command>machinectl</command>.</para>

                <para>Disk images are understood in three formats:</para>

                <itemizedlist>
                        <listitem><para>A simple directory tree,
                        containing the files and directories of the
                        container to boot.</para></listitem>

                        <listitem><para>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.</para></listitem>

                        <listitem><para>"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
                        <literal>.raw</literal>.</para></listitem>
                </itemizedlist>

                <para>See
                <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                for more information on image formats, in particular
                it's <option>--directory=</option> and
                <option>--image=</option> options.</para>
        </refsect1>

        <refsect1>
                <title>Exit status</title>

                <para>On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure
                code otherwise.</para>
        </refsect1>

        <xi:include href="less-variables.xml" />

        <refsect1>
                <title>See Also</title>
                <para>
                        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-machined.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-nspawn</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
                        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.special</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>
                </para>
        </refsect1>

</refentry>