man > systemd.scope(5)

SYSTEMD.SCOPE(5)                            systemd.scope                           SYSTEMD.SCOPE(5)

NAME
       systemd.scope - Scope unit configuration

SYNOPSIS
       scope.scope

DESCRIPTION
       Scope units are not configured via unit configuration files, but are only created
       programmatically using the bus interfaces of systemd. They are named similar to filenames. A
       unit whose name ends in ".scope" refers to a scope unit. Scopes units manage a set of system
       processes. Unlike service units, scope units manage externally created processes, and do not
       fork off processes on its own.

       The main purpose of scope units is grouping worker processes of a system service for
       organization and for managing resources.

       systemd-run --scope may be used to easily launch a command in a new scope unit from the
       command line.

       See the New Control Group Interfaces[1] for an introduction on how to make use of scope units
       from programs.

       Note that, unlike service units, scope units have no "main" process: all processes in the
       scope are equivalent. The lifecycle of the scope unit is thus not bound to the lifetime of
       one specific process, but to the existence of at least one process in the scope. This also
       means that the exit statuses of these processes are not relevant for the scope unit failure
       state. Scope units may still enter a failure state, for example due to resource exhaustion or
       stop timeouts being reached, but not due to programs inside of them terminating uncleanly.
       Since processes managed as scope units generally remain children of the original process that
       forked them off, it is also the job of that process to collect their exit statuses and act on
       them as needed.

AUTOMATIC DEPENDENCIES
   Implicit Dependencies
       Implicit dependencies may be added as result of resource control parameters as documented in
       systemd.resource-control(5).

   Default Dependencies
       The following dependencies are added unless DefaultDependencies=no is set:

       •   Scope units will automatically have dependencies of type Conflicts= and Before= on
           shutdown.target. These ensure that scope units are removed prior to system shutdown. Only
           scope units involved with early boot or late system shutdown should disable
           DefaultDependencies= option.

OPTIONS
       Scope files may include a [Unit] section, which is described in systemd.unit(5).

       Scope files may include a [Scope] section, which carries information about the scope and the
       units it contains. A number of options that may be used in this section are shared with other
       unit types. These options are documented in systemd.kill(5) and systemd.resource-control(5).
       The options specific to the [Scope] section of scope units are the following:

       OOMPolicy=
           Configure the out-of-memory (OOM) killing policy for the kernel and the userspace OOM
           killer systemd-oomd.service(8). On Linux, when memory becomes scarce to the point that
           the kernel has trouble allocating memory for itself, it might decide to kill a running
           process in order to free up memory and reduce memory pressure. Note that
           systemd-oomd.service is a more flexible solution that aims to prevent out-of-memory
           situations for the userspace too, not just the kernel, by attempting to terminate
           services earlier, before the kernel would have to act.

           This setting takes one of continue, stop or kill. If set to continue and a process in the
           unit is killed by the OOM killer, this is logged but the unit continues running. If set
           to stop the event is logged but the unit is terminated cleanly by the service manager. If
           set to kill and one of the unit's processes is killed by the OOM killer the kernel is
           instructed to kill all remaining processes of the unit too, by setting the
           memory.oom.group attribute to 1; also see kernel page Control Group v2[2].

           Defaults to the setting DefaultOOMPolicy= in systemd-system.conf(5) is set to, except for
           units where Delegate= is turned on, where it defaults to continue.

           Use the OOMScoreAdjust= setting to configure whether processes of the unit shall be
           considered preferred or less preferred candidates for process termination by the Linux
           OOM killer logic. See systemd.exec(5) for details.

           This setting also applies to systemd-oomd.service(8). Similarly to the kernel OOM kills
           performed by the kernel, this setting determines the state of the unit after systemd-oomd
           kills a cgroup associated with it.

           Added in version 243.

       RuntimeMaxSec=
           Configures a maximum time for the scope to run. If this is used and the scope has been
           active for longer than the specified time it is terminated and put into a failure state.
           Pass "infinity" (the default) to configure no runtime limit.

           Added in version 244.

       RuntimeRandomizedExtraSec=
           This option modifies RuntimeMaxSec= by increasing the maximum runtime by an evenly
           distributed duration between 0 and the specified value (in seconds). If RuntimeMaxSec= is
           unspecified, then this feature will be disabled.

           Added in version 250.

       Check systemd.unit(5), systemd.exec(5), and systemd.kill(5) for more settings.

SEE ALSO
       systemd(1), systemd-run(1), systemd.unit(5), systemd.resource-control(5), systemd.service(5),
       systemd.directives(7).

NOTES
        1. New Control Group Interfaces
           https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/ControlGroupInterface

        2. Control Group v2
           https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.html

systemd 255                                                                         SYSTEMD.SCOPE(5)