SYSTEMD-RUN-GENERATOR(8) systemd-run-generator SYSTEMD-RUN-GENERATOR(8)
NAME
systemd-run-generator - Generator for invoking commands specified on the
kernel command line as system service
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-run-generator
DESCRIPTION
systemd-run-generator is a generator that reads the kernel command line
and understands three options:
If the systemd.run= option is specified and followed by a command line,
a unit named kernel-command-line.service is generated for it and booted
into. The service has Type=oneshot set, and has SuccessAction=exit and
FailureAction=exit configured by default, thus ensuring that the system
is shut down as soon as the command completes. The exit status of the
command line is propagated to the invoking container manager, if this
applies (which might propagate this further, to the calling shell — e.g.
systemd-nspawn(1) does this). If this option is used multiple times the
unit file will contain multiple ExecStart= lines, to execute all
commands in order. The command is started as regular service, i.e. with
DefaultDependencies= on.
Use systemd.run_success_action= and systemd.run_failure_action= to tweak
how to react to the process completing. In particular assigning "none"
will leave the system running after the command completes. For further
details on supported arguments, see systemd.unit(5).
systemd-run-generator implements systemd.generator(7).
EXAMPLE
Use a command like the following to add a user to the user database
inside a container run with systemd-nspawn(1):
# systemd-nspawn -D mycontainer -b systemd.run='"adduser test"'
(Note the requirement for double quoting in the command line above. The
first level of quoting ('') is processed and removed by the command
shell used to invoke systemd-nspawn. The second level of quoting ("") is
propagated to the kernel command line of the container and processed and
removed by systemd-run-generator. Both together make sure both words of
the specified command line adduser test end up in the generated unit
file together and are neither split apart by the command shell nor by
the generator.)
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), systemctl(1), kernel-command-line(7), systemd-nspawn(1),
systemd.unit(5), systemd.service(5)
systemd 257.9 SYSTEMD-RUN-GENERATOR(8)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:47:43 CET 2025.