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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CREDENTIALS | EXIT STATUS | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8) systemd-sysusers SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8)
systemd-sysusers, systemd-sysusers.service - Allocate system users
and groups
systemd-sysusers [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
systemd-sysusers.service
systemd-sysusers creates system users and groups, based on files
in the format described in sysusers.d(5).
If invoked with no arguments, directives from the configuration
files found in the directories specified by sysusers.d(5) are
executed. When invoked with positional arguments, if option
--replace=PATH is specified, arguments specified on the command
line are used instead of the configuration file PATH. Otherwise,
just the configuration specified by the command line arguments is
executed. If the string "-" is specified instead of a filename,
the configuration is read from standard input. If the argument is
a file name (without any slashes), all configuration directories
are searched for a matching file and the file found that has the
highest priority is executed. If the argument is a path, that file
is used directly without searching the configuration directories
for any other matching file.
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.
Added in version 215.
--image=image
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[1]. For further
information on supported disk images, see systemd-nspawn(1)'s
switch of the same name.
Added in version 247.
--image-policy=policy
Takes an image policy string as argument, as per
systemd.image-policy(7). The policy is enforced when operating
on the disk image specified via --image=, see above. If not
specified, defaults to the "*" policy, i.e. all recognized
file systems in the image are used.
--replace=PATH
When this option is given, one or more positional arguments
must be specified. All configuration files found in the
directories listed in sysusers.d(5) will be read, and the
configuration given on the command line will be handled
instead of and with the same priority as the configuration
file PATH.
This option is intended to be used when package installation
scripts are running and files belonging to that package are
not yet available on disk, so their contents must be given on
the command line, but the admin configuration might already
exist and should be given higher priority.
Example 1. RPM installation script for radvd
echo 'u radvd - "radvd daemon"' | \
systemd-sysusers --replace=/usr/lib/sysusers.d/radvd.conf -
This will create the radvd user as if
/usr/lib/sysusers.d/radvd.conf was already on disk. An admin
might override the configuration specified on the command line
by placing /etc/sysusers.d/radvd.conf or even
/etc/sysusers.d/00-overrides.conf.
Note that this is the expanded form, and when used in a
package, this would be written using a macro with "radvd" and
a file containing the configuration line as arguments.
Added in version 238.
--dry-run
Process the configuration and figure out what entries would be
created, but do not actually write anything.
Added in version 250.
--inline
Treat each positional argument as a separate configuration
line instead of a file name.
Added in version 238.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Before
each file, the filename is printed as a comment.
--tldr
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. Only the
"interesting" parts of the configuration files are printed,
comments and empty lines are skipped. Before each file, the
filename is printed as a comment.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
systemd-sysusers supports the service credentials logic as
implemented by ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential=
(see systemd.exec(5) for details). The following credentials are
used when passed in:
passwd.hashed-password.user
A UNIX hashed password string to use for the specified user,
when creating an entry for it. This is particularly useful for
the "root" user as it allows provisioning the default root
password to use via a unit file drop-in or from a container
manager passing in this credential. Note that setting this
credential has no effect if the specified user account already
exists. This credential is hence primarily useful in first
boot scenarios or systems that are fully stateless and come up
with an empty /etc/ on every boot.
Added in version 249.
passwd.plaintext-password.user
Similar to "passwd.hashed-password.user" but expect a literal,
plaintext password, which is then automatically hashed before
used for the user account. If both the hashed and the
plaintext credential are specified for the same user the
former takes precedence. It's generally recommended to specify
the hashed version; however in test environments with weaker
requirements on security it might be easier to pass passwords
in plaintext instead.
Added in version 249.
passwd.shell.user
Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account
when creating it.
Added in version 249.
sysusers.extra
The contents of this credential may contain additional lines
to operate on. The credential contents should follow the same
format as any other sysusers.d/ drop-in. If this credential is
passed it is processed after all of the drop-in files read
from the file system.
Added in version 252.
Note that by default the systemd-sysusers.service unit file is set
up to inherit the "passwd.hashed-password.root",
"passwd.plaintext-password.root", "passwd.shell.root" and
"sysusers.extra" 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=passwd.hashed-password.root:'$y$j9T$yAuRJu1o5HioZAGDYPU5d.$F64ni6J2y2nNQve90M/p0ZP0ECP/qqzipNyaY9fjGpC' ...
Note again that the data specified in this credential is consulted
only when creating an account for the first time, it may not be
used for changing the password or shell of an account that already
exists.
Use mkpasswd(1) for generating UNIX password hashes from the
command line.
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
systemd(1), sysusers.d(5), Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd
systems[2], systemd.exec(5), mkpasswd(1)
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification
2. Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems
https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
manager) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-11.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
systemd 258~rc2 SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8)
Pages that refer to this page: systemd-firstboot(1), systemd-nspawn(1), sysusers.d(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd.system-credentials(7), systemd-sysext(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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