{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "busctl",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/busctl/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-05-30T05:10:04Z",
    "synopsis": "busctl [OPTIONS...] [COMMAND] [NAME...]",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "busctl - Introspect the bus\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "busctl [OPTIONS...] [COMMAND] [NAME...]\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "busctl may be used to introspect and monitor the D-Bus bus.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "COMMANDS": {
            "content": "The following commands are understood:\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "list",
                    "content": "Show all peers on the bus, by their service names. By default, shows both unique and\nwell-known names, but this may be changed with the --unique and --acquired switches. This\nis the default operation if no command is specified.\n\nstatus [SERVICE]\nShow process information and credentials of a bus service (if one is specified by its\nunique or well-known name), a process (if one is specified by its numeric PID), or the\nowner of the bus (if no parameter is specified).\n\nmonitor [SERVICE...]\nDump messages being exchanged. If SERVICE is specified, show messages to or from this\npeer, identified by its well-known or unique name. Otherwise, show all messages on the\nbus. Use Ctrl+C to terminate the dump.\n\ncapture [SERVICE...]\nSimilar to monitor but writes the output in pcap format (for details, see the Libpcap\nFile Format[1] description). Make sure to redirect standard output to a file. Tools like\nwireshark(1) may be used to dissect and view the resulting files.\n\ntree [SERVICE...]\nShows an object tree of one or more services. If SERVICE is specified, show object tree\nof the specified services only. Otherwise, show all object trees of all services on the\nbus that acquired at least one well-known name.\n\nintrospect SERVICE OBJECT [INTERFACE]\nShow interfaces, methods, properties and signals of the specified object (identified by\nits path) on the specified service. If the interface argument is passed, the output is\nlimited to members of the specified interface.\n\ncall SERVICE OBJECT INTERFACE METHOD [SIGNATURE [ARGUMENT...]]\nInvoke a method and show the response. Takes a service name, object path, interface name\nand method name. If parameters shall be passed to the method call, a signature string is\nrequired, followed by the arguments, individually formatted as strings. For details on\nthe formatting used, see below. To suppress output of the returned data, use the --quiet\noption.\n\nemit OBJECT INTERFACE SIGNAL [SIGNATURE [ARGUMENT...]]\nEmit a signal. Takes an object path, interface name and method name. If parameters shall\nbe passed, a signature string is required, followed by the arguments, individually\nformatted as strings. For details on the formatting used, see below. To specify the\ndestination of the signal, use the --destination= option.\n\nget-property SERVICE OBJECT INTERFACE PROPERTY...\nRetrieve the current value of one or more object properties. Takes a service name, object\npath, interface name and property name. Multiple properties may be specified at once, in\nwhich case their values will be shown one after the other, separated by newlines. The\noutput is, by default, in terse format. Use --verbose for a more elaborate output format.\n\nset-property SERVICE OBJECT INTERFACE PROPERTY SIGNATURE ARGUMENT...\nSet the current value of an object property. Takes a service name, object path, interface\nname, property name, property signature, followed by a list of parameters formatted as\nstrings.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "help",
                    "content": "Show command syntax help.\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "OPTIONS": {
            "content": "The following options are understood:\n\n--address=ADDRESS\nConnect to the bus specified by ADDRESS instead of using suitable defaults for either the\nsystem or user bus (see --system and --user options).\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "--show-machine",
                    "content": "When showing the list of peers, show a column containing the names of containers they\nbelong to. See systemd-machined.service(8).\n",
                    "long": "--show-machine"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--unique",
                    "content": "When showing the list of peers, show only \"unique\" names (of the form \":number.number\").\n",
                    "long": "--unique"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--acquired",
                    "content": "The opposite of --unique — only \"well-known\" names will be shown.\n",
                    "long": "--acquired"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--activatable",
                    "content": "When showing the list of peers, show only peers which have actually not been activated\nyet, but may be started automatically if accessed.\n\n--match=MATCH\nWhen showing messages being exchanged, show only the subset matching MATCH. See\nsdbusaddmatch(3).\n",
                    "long": "--activatable"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--size=",
                    "content": "When used with the capture command, specifies the maximum bus message size to capture\n(\"snaplen\"). Defaults to 4096 bytes.\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--list",
                    "content": "When used with the tree command, shows a flat list of object paths instead of a tree.\n",
                    "long": "--list"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-q --quiet",
                    "content": "When used with the call command, suppresses display of the response message payload. Note\nthat even if this option is specified, errors returned will still be printed and the tool\nwill indicate success or failure with the process exit code.\n",
                    "flag": "-q",
                    "long": "--quiet"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--verbose",
                    "content": "When used with the call or get-property command, shows output in a more verbose format.\n",
                    "long": "--verbose"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--xml-interface",
                    "content": "When used with the introspect call, dump the XML description received from the D-Bus\norg.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect call instead of the normal output.\n\n--json=MODE\nWhen used with the call or get-property command, shows output formatted as JSON. Expects\none of \"short\" (for the shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace or line\nbreaks) or \"pretty\" (for a pretty version of the same, with indentation and line breaks).\nNote that transformation from D-Bus marshalling to JSON is done in a loss-less way, which\nmeans type information is embedded into the JSON object tree.\n",
                    "long": "--xml-interface"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-j",
                    "content": "Equivalent to --json=pretty when invoked interactively from a terminal. Otherwise\nequivalent to --json=short, in particular when the output is piped to some other program.\n\n--expect-reply=BOOL\nWhen used with the call command, specifies whether busctl shall wait for completion of\nthe method call, output the returned method response data, and return success or failure\nvia the process exit code. If this is set to \"no\", the method call will be issued but no\nresponse is expected, the tool terminates immediately, and thus no response can be shown,\nand no success or failure is returned via the exit code. To only suppress output of the\nreply message payload, use --quiet above. Defaults to \"yes\".\n\n--auto-start=BOOL\nWhen used with the call or emit command, specifies whether the method call should\nimplicitly activate the called service, should it not be running yet but is configured to\nbe auto-started. Defaults to \"yes\".\n\n--allow-interactive-authorization=BOOL\nWhen used with the call command, specifies whether the services may enforce interactive\nauthorization while executing the operation, if the security policy is configured for\nthis. Defaults to \"yes\".\n\n--timeout=SECS\nWhen used with the call command, specifies the maximum time to wait for method call\ncompletion. If no time unit is specified, assumes seconds. The usual other units are\nunderstood, too (ms, us, s, min, h, d, w, month, y). Note that this timeout does not\napply if --expect-reply=no is used, as the tool does not wait for any reply message then.\nWhen not specified or when set to 0, the default of \"25s\" is assumed.\n\n--augment-creds=BOOL\nControls whether credential data reported by list or status shall be augmented with data\nfrom /proc/. When this is turned on, the data shown is possibly inconsistent, as the data\nread from /proc/ might be more recent than the rest of the credential information.\nDefaults to \"yes\".\n\n--watch-bind=BOOL\nControls whether to wait for the specified AFUNIX bus socket to appear in the file\nsystem before connecting to it. Defaults to off. When enabled, the tool will watch the\nfile system until the socket is created and then connect to it.\n\n--destination=SERVICE\nTakes a service name. When used with the emit command, a signal is emitted to the\nspecified service.\n",
                    "flag": "-j"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--user",
                    "content": "Talk to the service manager of the calling user, rather than the service manager of the\nsystem.\n",
                    "long": "--user"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--system",
                    "content": "Talk to the service manager of the system. This is the implied default.\n",
                    "long": "--system"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-H --host=",
                    "content": "Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated\nby \"@\", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a port ssh is listening\non, separated by \":\", and then a container name, separated by \"/\", which connects\ndirectly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the\nremote machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated with machinectl -H\nHOST. Put IPv6 addresses in brackets.\n",
                    "flag": "-H"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-M --machine=",
                    "content": "Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to,\noptionally prefixed by a user name to connect as and a separating \"@\" character. If the\nspecial string \".host\" is used in place of the container name, a connection to the local\nsystem is made (which is useful to connect to a specific user's user bus: \"--user\n--machine=lennart@.host\"). If the \"@\" syntax is not used, the connection is made as root\nuser. If the \"@\" syntax is used either the left hand side or the right hand side may be\nomitted (but not both) in which case the local user name and \".host\" are implied.\n",
                    "flag": "-M"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-l --full",
                    "content": "Do not ellipsize the output in list command.\n",
                    "flag": "-l",
                    "long": "--full"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--no-pager",
                    "content": "Do not pipe output into a pager.\n",
                    "long": "--no-pager"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--no-legend",
                    "content": "Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer with hints.\n",
                    "long": "--no-legend"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-h --help",
                    "content": "Print a short help text and exit.\n",
                    "flag": "-h",
                    "long": "--help"
                },
                {
                    "name": "--version",
                    "content": "Print a short version string and exit.\n",
                    "long": "--version"
                }
            ]
        },
        "PARAMETER FORMATTING": {
            "content": "The call and set-property commands take a signature string followed by a list of parameters\nformatted as string (for details on D-Bus signature strings, see the Type system chapter of\nthe D-Bus specification[2]). For simple types, each parameter following the signature should\nsimply be the parameter's value formatted as string. Positive boolean values may be formatted\nas \"true\", \"yes\", \"on\", or \"1\"; negative boolean values may be specified as \"false\", \"no\",\n\"off\", or \"0\". For arrays, a numeric argument for the number of entries followed by the\nentries shall be specified. For variants, the signature of the contents shall be specified,\nfollowed by the contents. For dictionaries and structs, the contents of them shall be\ndirectly specified.\n\nFor example,\n\ns jawoll\n\nis the formatting of a single string \"jawoll\".\n\nas 3 hello world foobar\n\nis the formatting of a string array with three entries, \"hello\", \"world\" and \"foobar\".\n\na{sv} 3 One s Eins Two u 2 Yes b true\n\nis the formatting of a dictionary array that maps strings to variants, consisting of three\nentries. The string \"One\" is assigned the string \"Eins\". The string \"Two\" is assigned the\n32-bit unsigned integer 2. The string \"Yes\" is assigned a positive boolean.\n\nNote that the call, get-property, introspect commands will also generate output in this\nformat for the returned data. Since this format is sometimes too terse to be easily\nunderstood, the call and get-property commands may generate a more verbose, multi-line output\nwhen passed the --verbose option.\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "EXAMPLES": {
            "content": "",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "Example 1. Write and Read a Property",
                    "content": "The following two commands first write a property and then read it back. The property is\nfound on the \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1\" object of the \"org.freedesktop.systemd1\" service.\nThe name of the property is \"LogLevel\" on the \"org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager\" interface.\nThe property contains a single string:\n\n# busctl set-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager LogLevel s debug\n# busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager LogLevel\ns \"debug\"\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Example 2. Terse and Verbose Output",
                    "content": "The following two commands read a property that contains an array of strings, and first show\nit in terse format, followed by verbose format:\n\n$ busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Environment\nas 2 \"LANG=enUS.UTF-8\" \"PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin\"\n$ busctl get-property --verbose org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Environment\nARRAY \"s\" {\nSTRING \"LANG=enUS.UTF-8\";\nSTRING \"PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin\";\n};\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "Example 3. Invoking a Method",
                    "content": "The following command invokes the \"StartUnit\" method on the\n\"org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager\" interface of the \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1\" object of the\n\"org.freedesktop.systemd1\" service, and passes it two strings \"cups.service\" and \"replace\".\nAs a result of the method call, a single object path parameter is received and shown:\n\n# busctl call org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager StartUnit ss \"cups.service\" \"replace\"\no \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1/job/42684\"\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "dbus-daemon(1), D-Bus[3], sd-bus(3), systemd(1), machinectl(1), wireshark(1)\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "NOTES": {
            "content": "1. Libpcap File Format\nhttps://wiki.wireshark.org/Development/LibpcapFileFormat\n\n2. Type system chapter of the D-Bus specification\nhttp://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#type-system\n\n3. D-Bus\nhttps://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus\n\n\n\nsystemd 249                                                                                BUSCTL(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "busctl - Introspect the bus",
    "flags": [
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--show-machine",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When showing the list of peers, show a column containing the names of containers they belong to. See systemd-machined.service(8)."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--unique",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When showing the list of peers, show only \"unique\" names (of the form \":number.number\")."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--acquired",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "The opposite of --unique — only \"well-known\" names will be shown."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--activatable",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When showing the list of peers, show only peers which have actually not been activated yet, but may be started automatically if accessed. --match=MATCH When showing messages being exchanged, show only the subset matching MATCH. See sdbusaddmatch(3)."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When used with the capture command, specifies the maximum bus message size to capture (\"snaplen\"). Defaults to 4096 bytes."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--list",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When used with the tree command, shows a flat list of object paths instead of a tree."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-q",
            "long": "--quiet",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When used with the call command, suppresses display of the response message payload. Note that even if this option is specified, errors returned will still be printed and the tool will indicate success or failure with the process exit code."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--verbose",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When used with the call or get-property command, shows output in a more verbose format."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--xml-interface",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "When used with the introspect call, dump the XML description received from the D-Bus org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect call instead of the normal output. --json=MODE When used with the call or get-property command, shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of \"short\" (for the shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace or line breaks) or \"pretty\" (for a pretty version of the same, with indentation and line breaks). Note that transformation from D-Bus marshalling to JSON is done in a loss-less way, which means type information is embedded into the JSON object tree."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-j",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Equivalent to --json=pretty when invoked interactively from a terminal. Otherwise equivalent to --json=short, in particular when the output is piped to some other program. --expect-reply=BOOL When used with the call command, specifies whether busctl shall wait for completion of the method call, output the returned method response data, and return success or failure via the process exit code. If this is set to \"no\", the method call will be issued but no response is expected, the tool terminates immediately, and thus no response can be shown, and no success or failure is returned via the exit code. To only suppress output of the reply message payload, use --quiet above. Defaults to \"yes\". --auto-start=BOOL When used with the call or emit command, specifies whether the method call should implicitly activate the called service, should it not be running yet but is configured to be auto-started. Defaults to \"yes\". --allow-interactive-authorization=BOOL When used with the call command, specifies whether the services may enforce interactive authorization while executing the operation, if the security policy is configured for this. Defaults to \"yes\". --timeout=SECS When used with the call command, specifies the maximum time to wait for method call completion. If no time unit is specified, assumes seconds. The usual other units are understood, too (ms, us, s, min, h, d, w, month, y). Note that this timeout does not apply if --expect-reply=no is used, as the tool does not wait for any reply message then. When not specified or when set to 0, the default of \"25s\" is assumed. --augment-creds=BOOL Controls whether credential data reported by list or status shall be augmented with data from /proc/. When this is turned on, the data shown is possibly inconsistent, as the data read from /proc/ might be more recent than the rest of the credential information. Defaults to \"yes\". --watch-bind=BOOL Controls whether to wait for the specified AFUNIX bus socket to appear in the file system before connecting to it. Defaults to off. When enabled, the tool will watch the file system until the socket is created and then connect to it. --destination=SERVICE Takes a service name. When used with the emit command, a signal is emitted to the specified service."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--user",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Talk to the service manager of the calling user, rather than the service manager of the system."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--system",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Talk to the service manager of the system. This is the implied default."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-H",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "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 port ssh is listening on, separated by \":\", and then 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. Put IPv6 addresses in brackets."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-M",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to, optionally prefixed by a user name to connect as and a separating \"@\" character. If the special string \".host\" is used in place of the container name, a connection to the local system is made (which is useful to connect to a specific user's user bus: \"--user --machine=lennart@.host\"). If the \"@\" syntax is not used, the connection is made as root user. If the \"@\" syntax is used either the left hand side or the right hand side may be omitted (but not both) in which case the local user name and \".host\" are implied."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-l",
            "long": "--full",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Do not ellipsize the output in list command."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--no-pager",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Do not pipe output into a pager."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--no-legend",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer with hints."
        },
        {
            "flag": "-h",
            "long": "--help",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Print a short help text and exit."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": "--version",
            "arg": null,
            "description": "Print a short version string and exit."
        }
    ],
    "examples": [
        "The following two commands first write a property and then read it back. The property is",
        "found on the \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1\" object of the \"org.freedesktop.systemd1\" service.",
        "The name of the property is \"LogLevel\" on the \"org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager\" interface.",
        "The property contains a single string:",
        "# busctl set-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager LogLevel s debug",
        "# busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager LogLevel",
        "s \"debug\"",
        "The following two commands read a property that contains an array of strings, and first show",
        "it in terse format, followed by verbose format:",
        "$ busctl get-property org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Environment",
        "as 2 \"LANG=enUS.UTF-8\" \"PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin\"",
        "$ busctl get-property --verbose org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager Environment",
        "ARRAY \"s\" {",
        "STRING \"LANG=enUS.UTF-8\";",
        "STRING \"PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin\";",
        "};",
        "The following command invokes the \"StartUnit\" method on the",
        "\"org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager\" interface of the \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1\" object of the",
        "\"org.freedesktop.systemd1\" service, and passes it two strings \"cups.service\" and \"replace\".",
        "As a result of the method call, a single object path parameter is received and shown:",
        "# busctl call org.freedesktop.systemd1 /org/freedesktop/systemd1 org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager StartUnit ss \"cups.service\" \"replace\"",
        "o \"/org/freedesktop/systemd1/job/42684\""
    ],
    "see_also": [
        {
            "name": "dbus-daemon",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/dbus-daemon/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "sd-bus",
            "section": "3",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/sd-bus/3/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "systemd",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/systemd/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "machinectl",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/machinectl/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "wireshark",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/wireshark/1/json"
        }
    ]
}