List currently running (online) virtual machines and containers. To enumerate machine images that can be started, use list-images (see below). Note that this command hides the special ".host" machine by default. Use the --all switch to show it.

Show runtime status information about one or more virtual machines and containers, followed by the most recent log data from the journal. This function is intended to generate human-readable output. If you are looking for computer-parsable output, use show instead. Note that the log data shown is reported by the virtual machine or container manager, and frequently contains console output of the machine, but not necessarily journal contents of the machine itself.

Show properties of one or more registered virtual machines or containers or the manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME is specified, properties of this virtual machine or container are shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required, and does not print the control group tree or journal entries. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

Start a container as a system service, using systemd-nspawn(1). This starts systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified machine name, similar to the effect of systemctl start on the service name. systemd-nspawn looks for a container image by the specified name in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below) and runs it. Use list-images (see below) for listing available container images to start.

Note that systemd-machined.service(8) also interfaces with a variety of other container and VM managers, systemd-nspawn is just one implementation of it. Most of the commands available in machinectl may be used on containers or VMs controlled by other managers, not just systemd-nspawn. Starting VMs and container images on those managers requires manager-specific tools.

To interactively start a container on the command line with full access to the container's console, please invoke systemd-nspawn directly. To stop a running container use machinectl poweroff.

Open an interactive terminal login session in a container or on the local host. If an argument is supplied, it refers to the container machine to connect to. If none is specified, or the container name is specified as the empty string, or the special machine name ".host" (see below) is specified, the connection is made to the local host instead. This will create a TTY connection to a specific container or the local host and asks for the execution of a getty on it. Note that this is only supported for containers running systemd(1) as init system.

This command will open a full login prompt on the container or the local host, which then asks for username and password. Use shell (see below) or systemd-run(1) with the --machine= switch to directly invoke a single command, either interactively or in the background.

Open an interactive shell session in a container or on the local host. The first argument refers to the container machine to connect to. If none is specified, or the machine name is specified as the empty string, or the special machine name ".host" (see below) is specified, the connection is made to the local host instead. This works similar to login but immediately invokes a user process. This command runs the specified executable with the specified arguments, or /bin/sh if none is specified. By default, opens a "root" shell, but by using --uid=, or by prefixing the machine name with a username and an "@" character, a different user may be selected. Use --setenv= to set environment variables for the executed process.

When using the shell command without arguments, (thus invoking the executed shell or command on the local host), it is in many ways similar to a su(1) session, but, unlike su, completely isolates the new session from the originating session, so that it shares no process or session properties, and is in a clean and well-defined state. It will be tracked in a new utmp, login, audit, security and keyring session, and will not inherit any environment variables or resource limits, among other properties.

Note that systemd-run(1) may be used in place of the shell command, and allows more detailed, low-level configuration of the invoked unit. However, it is frequently more privileged than the shell command.

Enable or disable a container as a system service to start at system boot, using systemd-nspawn(1). This enables or disables systemd-nspawn@.service, instantiated for the specified machine name, similar to the effect of systemctl enable or systemctl disable on the service name.

Power off one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by sending SIGRTMIN+4 to the container's init process, which causes systemd-compatible init systems to shut down cleanly. Use stop as alias for poweroff. This operation does not work on containers that do not run a systemd(1)-compatible init system, such as sysvinit. Use terminate (see below) to immediately terminate a container or VM, without cleanly shutting it down.

Reboot one or more containers. This will trigger a reboot by sending SIGINT to the container's init process, which is roughly equivalent to pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a non-containerized system, and is compatible with containers running any system manager.

Immediately terminates a virtual machine or container, without cleanly shutting it down. This kills all processes of the virtual machine or container and deallocates all resources attached to that instance. Use poweroff to issue a clean shutdown request.

Send a signal to one or more processes of the virtual machine or container. This means processes as seen by the host, not the processes inside the virtual machine or container. Use --kill-who= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to select the signal to send.

Bind mounts a directory from the host into the specified container. The first directory argument is the source directory on the host, the second directory argument is the destination directory in the container. When the latter is omitted, the destination path in the container is the same as the source path on the host. When combined with the --read-only switch, a ready-only bind mount is created. When combined with the --mkdir switch, the destination path is first created before the mount is applied. Note that this option is currently only supported for systemd-nspawn(1) containers.

Copies files or directories from the host system into a running container. Takes a container name, followed by the source path on the host and the destination path in the container. If the destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is used.

Copies files or directories from a container into the host system. Takes a container name, followed by the source path in the container the destination path on the host. If the destination path is omitted, the same as the source path is used.

Show a list of locally installed container and VM images. This enumerates all raw disk images and container directories and subvolumes in /var/lib/machines/ (and other search paths, see below). Use start (see above) to run a container off one of the listed images. Note that, by default, containers whose name begins with a dot (".") are not shown. To show these too, specify --all. Note that a special image ".host" always implicitly exists and refers to the image the host itself is booted from.

Show terse status information about one or more container or VM images. This function is intended to generate human-readable output. Use show-image (see below) to generate computer-parsable output instead.

Show properties of one or more registered virtual machine or container images, or the manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be shown. If a NAME is specified, properties of this virtual machine or container image are shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use image-status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

Clones a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of the image to clone and the name of the newly cloned image. Note that plain directory container images are cloned into btrfs subvolume images with this command, if the underlying file system supports this. Note that cloning a container or VM image is optimized for btrfs file systems, and might not be efficient on others, due to file system limitations.

Note that this command leaves host name, machine ID and all other settings that could identify the instance unmodified. The original image and the cloned copy will hence share these credentials, and it might be necessary to manually change them in the copy.

If combined with the --read-only switch a read-only cloned image is created.

Renames a container or VM image. The arguments specify the name of the image to rename and the new name of the image.

Marks or (unmarks) a container or VM image read-only. Takes a VM or container image name, followed by a boolean as arguments. If the boolean is omitted, positive is implied, i.e. the image is marked read-only.

Removes one or more container or VM images. The special image ".host", which refers to the host's own directory tree, may not be removed.

Sets the maximum size in bytes that a specific container or VM image, or all images, may grow up to on disk (disk quota). Takes either one or two parameters. The first, optional parameter refers to a container or VM image name. If specified, the size limit of the specified image is changed. If omitted, the overall size limit of the sum of all images stored locally is changed. The final argument specifies the size limit in bytes, possibly suffixed by the usual K, M, G, T units. If the size limit shall be disabled, specify "-" as size.

Note that per-container size limits are only supported on btrfs file systems. Also note that, if set-limit is invoked without an image parameter, and /var/lib/machines is empty, and the directory is not located on btrfs, a btrfs loopback file is implicitly created as /var/lib/machines.raw with the given size, and mounted to /var/lib/machines. The size of the loopback may later be readjusted with set-limit, as well. If such a loopback-mounted /var/lib/machines directory is used, set-limit without an image name alters both the quota setting within the file system as well as the loopback file and file system size itself.

Remove hidden VM or container images (or all). This command removes all hidden machine images from /var/lib/machines, i.e. those whose name begins with a dot. Use machinectl list-images --all to see a list of all machine images, including the hidden ones.

When combined with the --all switch removes all images, not just hidden ones. This command effectively empties /var/lib/machines.

Note that commands such as machinectl pull-tar or machinectl pull-raw usually create hidden, read-only, unmodified machine images from the downloaded image first, before cloning a writable working copy of it, in order to avoid duplicate downloads in case of images that are reused multiple times. Use machinectl clean to remove old, hidden images created this way.

Downloads a .tar container image from the specified URL, and makes it available under the specified local machine name. The URL must be of type "http://" or "https://", and must refer to a .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.xz or .tar.bz2 archive file. If the local machine name is omitted, it is automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with its suffix removed.

The image is verified before it is made available, unless --verify=no is specified. Verification is done via SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.gpg files that need to be made available on the same web server, under the same URL as the .tar file, but with the last component (the filename) of the URL replaced. With --verify=checksum, only the SHA256 checksum for the file is verified, based on the SHA256SUMS file. With --verify=signature, the SHA256SUMS file is first verified with detached GPG signature file SHA256SUMS.gpg. The public key for this verification step needs to be available in /usr/lib/systemd/import-pubring.gpg or /etc/systemd/import-pubring.gpg.

The container image will be downloaded and stored in a read-only subvolume in /var/lib/machines/ that is named after the specified URL and its HTTP etag. A writable snapshot is then taken from this subvolume, and named after the specified local name. This behavior ensures that creating multiple container instances of the same URL is efficient, as multiple downloads are not necessary. In order to create only the read-only image, and avoid creating its writable snapshot, specify "-" as local machine name.

Note that the read-only subvolume is prefixed with .tar-, and is thus not shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.

Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.

Downloads a .raw container or VM disk image from the specified URL, and makes it available under the specified local machine name. The URL must be of type "http://" or "https://". The container image must either be a .qcow2 or raw disk image, optionally compressed as .gz, .xz, or .bz2. If the local machine name is omitted, it is automatically derived from the last component of the URL, with its suffix removed.

Image verification is identical for raw and tar images (see above).

If the downloaded image is in .qcow2 format it is converted into a raw image file before it is made available.

Downloaded images of this type will be placed as read-only .raw file in /var/lib/machines/. A local, writable (reflinked) copy is then made under the specified local machine name. To omit creation of the local, writable copy pass "-" as local machine name.

Similar to the behavior of pull-tar, the read-only image is prefixed with .raw-, and thus not shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.

Note that pressing C-c during execution of this command will not abort the download. Use cancel-transfer, described below.

Imports a TAR or RAW container or VM image, and places it under the specified name in /var/lib/machines/. When import-tar is used, the file specified as the first argument should be a tar archive, possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2. It will then be unpacked into its own subvolume in /var/lib/machines. When import-raw is used, the file should be a qcow2 or raw disk image, possibly compressed with xz, gzip or bzip2. If the second argument (the resulting image name) is not specified, it is automatically derived from the file name. If the file name is passed as "-", the image is read from standard input, in which case the second argument is mandatory.

Both pull-tar and pull-raw will resize /var/lib/machines.raw and the filesystem therein as necessary. Optionally, the --read-only switch may be used to create a read-only container or VM image. No cryptographic validation is done when importing the images.

Much like image downloads, ongoing imports may be listed with list-transfers and aborted with cancel-transfer.

Exports a TAR or RAW container or VM image and stores it in the specified file. The first parameter should be a VM or container image name. The second parameter should be a file path the TAR or RAW image is written to. If the path ends in ".gz", the file is compressed with gzip, if it ends in ".xz", with xz, and if it ends in ".bz2", with bzip2. If the path ends in neither, the file is left uncompressed. If the second argument is missing, the image is written to standard output. The compression may also be explicitly selected with the --format= switch. This is in particular useful if the second parameter is left unspecified.

Much like image downloads and imports, ongoing exports may be listed with list-transfers and aborted with cancel-transfer.

Note that, currently, only directory and subvolume images may be exported as TAR images, and only raw disk images as RAW images.

Shows a list of container or VM image downloads, imports and exports that are currently in progress.

Aborts a download, import or export of the container or VM image with the specified ID. To list ongoing transfers and their IDs, use list-transfers.