SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8) systemd-sysusers SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8)
NAME
systemd-sysusers, systemd-sysusers.service - Allocate system users and groups
SYNOPSIS
systemd-sysusers [OPTIONS...] [CONFIGFILE...]
systemd-sysusers.service
DESCRIPTION
systemd-sysusers creates system users and groups, based on the file format and location
specified in sysusers.d(5).
If invoked with no arguments, it applies all directives from all files found in the
directories specified by sysusers.d(5). 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. The string "-" may be specified instead of a filename to
instruct systemd-sysusers to read the configuration from standard input. If only the
basename of a file is specified, all configuration directories are searched for a matching
file and the file found that has the highest priority is executed.
OPTIONS
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.
--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.
--replace=PATH
When this option is given, one ore 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.
--inline
Treat each positional argument as a separate configuration line instead of a file
name.
--cat-config
Copy the contents of config files to standard output. 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.
CREDENTIALS
systemd-sysusers supports the service credentials logic as implemented by
LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see systemd.exec(1) 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.
"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.
"passwd.shell.user"
Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account when creating it.
Note that by default the systemd-sysusers.service unit file is set up to inherit the
"passwd.hashed-password.root", "passwd.plaintext-password.root" and "passwd.shell.root"
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=password.hashed-password.root:'$y$j9T$yAuRJu1o5HioZAGDYPU5d.$F64ni6J2y2nNQve90M/p0ZP0ECP/qqzipNyaY9fjGpC' ...
Note again that the data specified in these credentials 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.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), sysusers.d(5), Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems[2],
systemd.exec(1), mkpasswd(1)
NOTES
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://systemd.io/DISCOVERABLE_PARTITIONS
2. Users, Groups, UIDs and GIDs on systemd systems
https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS
systemd 249 SYSTEMD-SYSUSERS(8)
Generated by $Id: phpMan.php,v 4.55 2007/09/05 04:42:51 chedong Exp $ Author: Che Dong
On Apache
Under GNU General Public License
2025-11-21 17:19 @216.73.216.164 CrawledBy Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)