systemd-sysusers

Index · Directives systemd 238.51

## 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.

`--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 from, 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.

`-h`, `--help`

  Print a short help text and exit.

`--version`

  Print a short version string and exit.

## Exit status

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

## See Also

systemd(1), sysusers.d(5)