systemd-run (1)

systemd-run [OPTIONS...] COMMAND [ARGS...]

systemd-run may be used to create and start a transient .service or a .scope unit and run the specified COMMAND in it.

If a command is run as transient service unit, it will be started and managed by the service manager like any other service, and thus show up in the output of systemctl list-units like any other unit. It will run in a clean and detached execution environment. systemd-run will start the service asynchronously in the background and immediately return.

If a command is run as transient scope unit, it will be started directly by systemd-run and thus inherit the execution environment of the caller. It is however managed by the service manager similar to normal services, and will also show up in the output of systemctl list-units. Execution in this case is synchronous, and execution will return only when the command finishes.

The following options are understood:

--scope

Create a transient .scope unit instead of the default transient .service unit.

--unit=

Use this unit name instead of an automatically generated one.

--property=, -p

Sets a unit property for the scope or service unit that is created. This takes an assignment in the same format as systemctl(1)'s set-property command.

--description=

Provide a description for the service or scope unit. If not specified, the command itself will be used as a description. See Description= in systemd.unit(5).

--slice=

Make the new .service or .scope unit part of the specified slice, instead of the system.slice.

--remain-after-exit

After the service or scope process has terminated, keep the service around until it is explicitly stopped. This is useful to collect runtime information about the service after it finished running. Also see RemainAfterExit= in systemd.service(5).

--send-sighup

When terminating the scope or service unit, send a SIGHUP immediately after SIGTERM. This is useful to indicate to shells and shell-like processes that the connection has been severed. Also see SendSIGHUP= in systemd.kill(5).

--service-type=

Sets the service type. Also see Type= in systemd.service(5). This option has no effect in conjunction with --scope. Defaults to simple.

--uid=, --gid=

Runs the service process under the UNIX user and group. Also see User= and Group= in systemd.exec(5).

--nice=

Runs the service process with the specified nice level. Also see Nice= in systemd.exec(5).

--setenv=

Runs the service process with the specified environment variables set. Also see Environment= in systemd.exec(5).

--user

Talk to the service manager of the calling user, rather than the service manager of the system.

--system

Talk to the service manager of the system. This is the implied default.

-H, --host=

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 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.

-M, --machine=

Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.

-h, --help

Print a short help text and exit.

--version

Print a short version string and exit.

All command-line arguments after the first non-option argument become part of the commandline of the launched process. If a command is run as service unit, its first argument needs to be an absolute binary path.

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

The following command will log the environment variables provided by systemd to services:

# systemd-run env
Running as unit run-19945.service.
# journalctl -u run-19945.service
Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis systemd[1]: Starting /usr/bin/env...
Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis systemd[1]: Started /usr/bin/env.
Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Sep 08 07:37:21 bupkis env[19948]: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.11.0-0.rc5.git6.2.fc20.x86_64

The following command invokes the updatedb(8) tool, but lowers the block IO weight for it to 10. See systemd.resource-control(5) for more information on the BlockIOWeight= property.

# systemd-run -p BlockIOWeight=10 updatedb

systemd(1), systemctl(1), systemd.unit(5), systemd.service(5), systemd.scope(5), systemd.slice(5), systemd.exec(5), systemd.resource-control(5), machinectl(1)