If neither --directory=, nor --image= is specified the directory is determined by searching for a directory named the same as the machine name specified with --machine=. See machinectl(1) section "Files and Directories" for the precise search path.

If neither --directory=, --image=, nor --machine= are specified, the current directory will be used. May not be specified together with --image=.

Note that this switch leaves hostname, machine ID and all other settings that could identify the instance unmodified.

Note that this switch leaves hostname, machine ID and all other settings that could identify the instance unmodified. Please note that — as with --template= — taking the temporary snapshot is more efficient on file systems that support subvolume snapshots or 'reflinks' natively ("btrfs" or new "xfs") than on more traditional file systems that do not ("ext4"). Note that the snapshot taken is of the specified directory or subvolume, including all subdirectories and subvolumes below it, but excluding any sub-mounts.

With this option no modifications of the container image are retained. Use --volatile= (described below) for other mechanisms to restrict persistency of container images during runtime.

On GPT images, if an EFI System Partition (ESP) is discovered, it is automatically mounted to /efi (or /boot as fallback) in case a directory by this name exists and is empty.

Partitions encrypted with LUKS are automatically decrypted. Also, on GPT images dm-verity data integrity hash partitions are set up if the root hash for them is specified using the --root-hash= option.

Single file system images (i.e. file systems without a surrounding partition table) can be opened using dm-verity if the integrity data is passed using the --root-hash= and --verity-data= (and optionally --root-hash-sig=) options.

Any other partitions, such as foreign partitions or swap partitions are not mounted. May not be specified together with --directory=, --template=.

Note that if one of the volatile modes is chosen, its effect is limited to the root file system (or /var/ in case of state), and any other mounts placed in the hierarchy are unaffected — regardless if they are established automatically (e.g. the EFI system partition that might be mounted to /efi/ or /boot/) or explicitly (e.g. through an additional command line option such as --bind=, see below). This means, even if --volatile=overlay is used changes to /efi/ or /boot/ are prohibited in case such a partition exists in the container image operated on, and even if --volatile=state is used the hypothetical file /etc/foobar is potentially writable if --bind=/etc/foobar if used to mount it from outside the read-only container /etc/ directory.

The --ephemeral option is closely related to this setting, and provides similar behaviour by making a temporary, ephemeral copy of the whole OS image and executing that. For further details, see above.

The --tmpfs= and --overlay= options provide similar functionality, but for specific sub-directories of the OS image only. For details, see below.

This option provides similar functionality for containers as the "systemd.volatile=" kernel command line switch provides for host systems. See kernel-command-line(7) for details.

Note that setting this option to yes or state will only work correctly with operating systems in the container that can boot up with only /usr/ mounted, and are able to automatically populate /var/ (and /etc/ in case of "--volatile=yes"). Specifically, this means that operating systems that follow the historic split of /bin/ and /lib/ (and related directories) from /usr/ (i.e. where the former are not symlinks into the latter) are not supported by "--volatile=yes" as container payload. The overlay option does not require any particular preparations in the OS, but do note that "overlayfs" behaviour differs from regular file systems in a number of ways, and hence compatibility is limited.

Note that this configures the root hash for the root file system. Disk images may also contain separate file systems for the /usr/ hierarchy, which may be Verity protected as well. The root hash for this protection may be configured via the "user.verity.usrhash" extended file attribute or via a .usrhash file adjacent to the disk image, following the same format and logic as for the root hash for the root file system described here. Note that there's currently no switch to configure the root hash for the /usr/ from the command line.

Also see the RootHash= option in systemd.exec(5).

This is for containers which have several bootable directories in them; for example, several OSTree[4] deployments. It emulates the behavior of the boot loader and the initrd which normally select which directory to mount as the root and start the container's PID 1 in.

The following table explains the different modes of invocation and relationship to --as-pid2 (see above):

Table 1. Invocation Mode

Note that
--boot is the default mode of operation if the systemd-nspawn@.service template unit file is used.

Note that passing --keep-unit disables the effect of --slice= and --property=. Use --keep-unit and --register=no in combination to disable any kind of unit allocation or registration with systemd-machined.

It is recommended to assign at least 65536 UIDs/GIDs to each container, so that the usable UID/GID range in the container covers 16 bit. For best security, do not assign overlapping UID/GID ranges to multiple containers. It is hence a good idea to use the upper 16 bit of the host 32-bit UIDs/GIDs as container identifier, while the lower 16 bit encode the container UID/GID used. This is in fact the behavior enforced by the --private-users=pick option.

When user namespaces are used, the GID range assigned to each container is always chosen identical to the UID range.

In most cases, using --private-users=pick is the recommended option as it enhances container security massively and operates fully automatically in most cases.

Note that the picked UID/GID range is not written to /etc/passwd or /etc/group. In fact, the allocation of the range is not stored persistently anywhere, except in the file ownership of the files and directories of the container.

Note that when user namespacing is used file ownership on disk reflects this, and all of the container's files and directories are owned by the container's effective user and group IDs. This means that copying files from and to the container image requires correction of the numeric UID/GID values, according to the UID/GID shift applied.

If "chown" is selected, all files and directories in the container's directory tree will be adjusted so that they are owned by the appropriate UIDs/GIDs selected for the container (see above). This operation is potentially expensive, as it involves iterating through the full directory tree of the container. Besides actual file ownership, file ACLs are adjusted as well.

Typically "map" is the best choice, since it transparently maps UIDs/GIDs in memory as needed without modifying the image, and without requiring an expensive recursive adjustment operation. However, it is not available for all file systems, currently.

The --private-users-ownership=auto option is implied if --private-users=pick is used. This option has no effect if user namespacing is not used.

Note that -U is the default if the systemd-nspawn@.service template unit file is used.

Note: it is possible to undo the effect of --private-users-ownership=chown (or -U) on the file system by redoing the operation with the first UID of 0:

systemd-nspawn ... --private-users=0 --private-users-ownership=chown

Note that any network interface specified this way must already exist at the time the container is started. If the container shall be started automatically at boot via a systemd-nspawn@.service unit file instance, it might hence make sense to add a unit file drop-in to the service instance (e.g. /etc/systemd/system/systemd-nspawn@foobar.service.d/50-network.conf) with contents like the following:

[Unit]
Wants=sys-subsystem-net-devices-ens1.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-ens1.device

This will make sure that activation of the container service will be delayed until the "ens1" network interface has shown up. This is required since hardware probing is fully asynchronous, and network interfaces might be discovered only later during the boot process, after the container would normally be started without these explicit dependencies.

As with --network-interface=, the underlying Ethernet network interface must already exist at the time the container is started, and thus similar unit file drop-ins as described above might be useful.

As with --network-interface=, the underlying Ethernet network interface must already exist at the time the container is started, and thus similar unit file drop-ins as described above might be useful.

Note that systemd-networkd.service(8) includes by default a network file /lib/systemd/network/80-container-ve.network matching the host-side interfaces created this way, which contains settings to enable automatic address provisioning on the created virtual link via DHCP, as well as automatic IP routing onto the host's external network interfaces. It also contains /lib/systemd/network/80-container-host0.network matching the container-side interface created this way, containing settings to enable client side address assignment via DHCP. In case systemd-networkd is running on both the host and inside the container, automatic IP communication from the container to the host is thus available, with further connectivity to the external network.

Note that --network-veth is the default if the systemd-nspawn@.service template unit file is used.

Note that on Linux network interface names may have a length of 15 characters at maximum, while container names may have a length up to 64 characters. As this option derives the host-side interface name from the container name the name is possibly truncated. Thus, care needs to be taken to ensure that interface names remain unique in this case, or even better container names are generally not chosen longer than 12 characters, to avoid the truncation. If the name is truncated, systemd-nspawn will automatically append a 4-digit hash value to the name to reduce the chance of collisions. However, the hash algorithm is not collision-free. (See systemd.net-naming-scheme(7) for details on older naming algorithms for this interface). Alternatively, the --network-veth-extra= option may be used, which allows free configuration of the host-side interface name independently of the container name — but might require a bit more additional configuration in case bridging in a fashion similar to --network-bridge= is desired.

As with --network-interface=, the underlying bridge network interface must already exist at the time the container is started, and thus similar unit file drop-ins as described above might be useful.

This setting makes it easy to place multiple related containers on a common, virtual Ethernet-based broadcast domain, here called a "zone". Each container may only be part of one zone, but each zone may contain any number of containers. Each zone is referenced by its name. Names may be chosen freely (as long as they form valid network interface names when prefixed with "vz-"), and it is sufficient to pass the same name to the --network-zone= switch of the various concurrently running containers to join them in one zone.

Note that systemd-networkd.service(8) includes by default a network file /lib/systemd/network/80-container-vz.network matching the bridge interfaces created this way, which contains settings to enable automatic address provisioning on the created virtual network via DHCP, as well as automatic IP routing onto the host's external network interfaces. Using --network-zone= is hence in most cases fully automatic and sufficient to connect multiple local containers in a joined broadcast domain to the host, with further connectivity to the external network.

If the special value of "help" is passed, the program will print known capability names and exit.

This option sets the bounding set of capabilities which also limits the ambient capabilities as given with the --ambient-capability=.

If the special value of "help" is passed, the program will print known capability names and exit.

This option sets the bounding set of capabilities which also limits the ambient capabilities as given with the --ambient-capability=.

All capabilities specified here must be in the set allowed with the --capability= and --drop-capability= options. Otherwise, an error message will be shown.

This option cannot be combined with the boot mode of the container (as requested via --boot).

If the special value of "help" is passed, the program will print known capability names and exit.

If set to "off" the /etc/resolv.conf file in the container is left as it is included in the image, and neither modified nor bind mounted over.

If set to "copy-host", the /etc/resolv.conf file from the host is copied into the container, unless the file exists already and is not a regular file (e.g. a symlink). Similarly, if "replace-host" is used the file is copied, replacing any existing inode, including symlinks. Similarly, if "bind-host" is used, the file is bind mounted from the host into the container.

If set to "copy-static", "replace-static" or "bind-static" the static resolv.conf file supplied with systemd-resolved.service(8) (specifically: /usr/lib/systemd/resolv.conf) is copied or bind mounted into the container.

If set to "copy-uplink", "replace-uplink" or "bind-uplink" the uplink resolv.conf file managed by systemd-resolved.service (specifically: /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf) is copied or bind mounted into the container.

If set to "copy-stub", "replace-stub" or "bind-stub" the stub resolv.conf file managed by systemd-resolved.service (specifically: /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf) is copied or bind mounted into the container.

If set to "delete" the /etc/resolv.conf file in the container is deleted if it exists.

Finally, if set to "auto" the file is left as it is if private networking is turned on (see --private-network). Otherwise, if systemd-resolved.service is running its stub resolv.conf file is used, and if not the host's /etc/resolv.conf file. In the latter cases the file is copied if the image is writable, and bind mounted otherwise.

It's recommended to use "copy-..." or "replace-..." if the container shall be able to make changes to the DNS configuration on its own, deviating from the host's settings. Otherwise "bind" is preferable, as it means direct changes to /etc/resolv.conf in the container are not allowed, as it is a read-only bind mount (but note that if the container has enough privileges, it might simply go ahead and unmount the bind mount anyway). Note that both if the file is bind mounted and if it is copied no further propagation of configuration is generally done after the one-time early initialization (this is because the file is usually updated through copying and renaming). Defaults to "auto".

Note that --link-journal=try-guest is the default if the systemd-nspawn@.service template unit file is used.

Mount options are comma-separated. rbind and norbind control whether to create a recursive or a regular bind mount. Defaults to "rbind". noidmap, idmap, and rootidmap control ID mapping.

Using idmap or rootidmap requires support by the source filesystem for user/group ID mapped mounts. Defaults to "noidmap". With x being the container's UID range offset, y being the length of the container's UID range, and p being the owner UID of the bind mount source inode on the host:

Whichever ID mapping option is used, the same mapping will be used for users and groups IDs. If rootidmap is used, the group owning the bind mounted directory will have no effect.

Note that when this option is used in combination with --private-users, the resulting mount points will be owned by the nobody user. That's because the mount and its files and directories continue to be owned by the relevant host users and groups, which do not exist in the container, and thus show up under the wildcard UID 65534 (nobody). If such bind mounts are created, it is recommended to make them read-only, using --bind-ro=. Alternatively you can use the "idmap" mount option to map the filesystem IDs.

The combination of the three operations above ensures that it is possible to log into the container using the same account information as on the host. The user is only mapped transiently, while the container is running, and the mapping itself does not result in persistent changes to the container (except maybe for log messages generated at login time, and similar). Note that in particular the UID/GID assignment in the container is not made persistently. If the user is mapped transiently, it is best to not allow the user to make persistent changes to the container. If the user leaves files or directories owned by the user, and those UIDs/GIDs are reused during later container invocations (possibly with a different --bind-user= mapping), those files and directories will be accessible to the "new" user.

The user/group record mapping only works if the container contains systemd 249 or newer, with nss-systemd properly configured in nsswitch.conf. See nss-systemd(8) for details.

Note that the user record propagated from the host into the container will contain the UNIX password hash of the user, so that seamless logins in the container are possible. If the container is less trusted than the host it's hence important to use a strong UNIX password hash function (e.g. yescrypt or similar, with the "$y$" hash prefix).

When binding a user from the host into the container checks are executed to ensure that the username is not yet known in the container. Moreover, it is checked that the UID/GID allocated for it is not currently defined in the user/group databases of the container. Both checks directly access the container's /etc/passwd and /etc/group, and thus might not detect existing accounts in other databases.

This operation is only supported in combination with --private-users=/-U.

Note that this option cannot be used to replace the root file system of the container with a temporary file system. However, the --volatile= option described below provides similar functionality, with a focus on implementing stateless operating system images.

Backslash escapes are interpreted in the paths, so "\:" may be used to embed colons in the paths.

If three or more paths are specified, then the last specified path is the destination mount point in the container, all paths specified before refer to directory trees on the host and are combined in the specified order into one overlay file system. The left-most path is hence the lowest directory tree, the second-to-last path the highest directory tree in the stacking order. If --overlay-ro= is used instead of --overlay=, a read-only overlay file system is created. If a writable overlay file system is created, all changes made to it are written to the highest directory tree in the stacking order, i.e. the second-to-last specified.

If only two paths are specified, then the second specified path is used both as the top-level directory tree in the stacking order as seen from the host, as well as the mount point for the overlay file system in the container. At least two paths have to be specified.

The source paths may optionally be prefixed with "+" character. If so they are taken relative to the image's root directory. The uppermost source path may also be specified as an empty string, in which case a temporary directory below the host's /var/tmp/ is used. The directory is removed automatically when the container is shut down. This behaviour is useful in order to make read-only container directories writable while the container is running. For example, use "--overlay=+/var::/var" in order to automatically overlay a writable temporary directory on a read-only /var/ directory. If a source path is not absolute, it is resolved relative to the current working directory.

For details about overlay file systems, see Overlay Filesystem[5]. Note that the semantics of overlay file systems are substantially different from normal file systems, in particular regarding reported device and inode information. Device and inode information may change for a file while it is being written to, and processes might see out-of-date versions of files at times. Note that this switch automatically derives the "workdir=" mount option for the overlay file system from the top-level directory tree, making it a sibling of it. It is hence essential that the top-level directory tree is not a mount point itself (since the working directory must be on the same file system as the top-most directory tree). Also note that the "lowerdir=" mount option receives the paths to stack in the opposite order of this switch.

Note that this option cannot be used to replace the root file system of the container with an overlay file system. However, the --volatile= option described above provides similar functionality, with a focus on implementing stateless operating system images.

In pipe mode, /dev/console will not exist in the container. This means that the container payload generally cannot be a full init system as init systems tend to require /dev/console to be available. On the other hand, in this mode container invocations can be used within shell pipelines. This is because intermediary pseudo TTYs do not permit independent bidirectional propagation of the end-of-file (EOF) condition, which is necessary for shell pipelines to work correctly. Note that the pipe mode should be used carefully, as passing arbitrary file descriptors to less trusted container payloads might open up unwanted interfaces for access by the container payload. For example, if a passed file descriptor refers to a TTY of some form, APIs such as TIOCSTI may be used to synthesize input that might be used for escaping the container. Hence pipe mode should only be used if the payload is sufficiently trusted or when the standard input/output/error output file descriptors are known safe, for example pipes.

Note: when systemd-nspawn runs as systemd system service it can propagate the credentials it received via LoadCredential=/SetCredential= to the container payload. A systemd service manager running as PID 1 in the container can further propagate them to the services it itself starts. It is thus possible to easily propagate credentials from a parent service manager to a container manager service and from there into its payload. This can even be done recursively.

In order to embed binary data into the credential data for --set-credential=, use C-style escaping (i.e. "\n" to embed a newline, or "\x00" to embed a NUL byte). Note that the invoking shell might already apply unescaping once, hence this might require double escaping!.

The systemd-sysusers.service(8) and systemd-firstboot(1) services read credentials configured this way for the purpose of configuring the container's root user's password and shell, as well as system locale, keymap and timezone during the first boot process of the container. This is particularly useful in combination with --volatile=yes where every single boot appears as first boot, since configuration applied to /etc/ is lost on container reboot cycles. See the respective man pages for details. Example:

# systemd-nspawn -i image.raw \


          --volatile=yes \


          --set-credential=firstboot.locale:de_DE.UTF-8 \


          --set-credential=passwd.hashed-password.root:'$y$j9T$yAuRJu1o5HioZAGDYPU5d.$F64ni6J2y2nNQve90M/p0ZP0ECP/qqzipNyaY9fjGpC' \


          -b

The above command line will invoke the specified image file image.raw in volatile mode, i.e. with empty /etc/ and /var/. The container payload will recognize this as a first boot, and will invoke systemd-firstboot.service, which then reads the two passed credentials to configure the system's initial locale and root password.