systemd-firstboot(1) — Linux manual page
SYSTEMD-FIRSTBOOT(1) systemd-firstboot SYSTEMD-FIRSTBOOT(1)
NAME
systemd-firstboot, systemd-firstboot.service - Initialize basic
system settings on or before the first boot-up of a system
SYNOPSIS
systemd-firstboot [OPTIONS...]
systemd-firstboot.service
DESCRIPTION
The systemd-firstboot.service unit is one of the units which are
used to initialize the machine configuration during "First Boot",
i.e. when the system is freshly installed or after a factory
reset. The systemd(1) manager itself will initialize
machine-id(5) and preset all units, enabling or disabling them
according to the systemd.preset(5) settings.
systemd-firstboot.service is started later to interactively
initialize basic system configuration. It is started only if
ConditionFirstBoot=yes is met, which essentially means that /etc/
is unpopulated, see systemd.unit(5) for details. System
credentials may be used to inject configuration; those settings
are not queried interactively.
The systemd-firstboot command can also be used to
non-interactively initialize an offline system image.
The following settings may be configured:
• The machine ID of the system
• The system locale, more specifically the two locale variables
LANG= and LC_MESSAGES
• The system keyboard map
• The system time zone
• The system hostname
• The kernel command line used when installing kernel images
• The root user's password and shell
Each of the fields may either be queried interactively by users,
set non-interactively on the tool's command line, or be copied
from a host system that is used to set up the system image.
If a setting is already initialized, it will not be overwritten
and the user will not be prompted for the setting.
Note that this tool operates directly on the file system and does
not involve any running system services, unlike localectl(1),
timedatectl(1) or hostnamectl(1). This allows systemd-firstboot
to operate on mounted but not booted disk images and in early
boot. It is not recommended to use systemd-firstboot on the
running system after it has been set up.
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. This is useful to operate on a system image
mounted to the specified directory instead of the host system
itself.
Added in version 216.
--image=path
Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
specified all operations are applied to file system in the
indicated disk image. This is similar to --root= but operates
on file systems stored in disk images or block devices. The
disk image should either contain just a file system or a set
of file systems within a GPT partition table, following the
Discoverable Partitions Specification[1]. For further
information on supported disk images, see systemd-nspawn(1)'s
switch of the same name.
Added in version 246.
--locale=LOCALE, --locale-messages=LOCALE
Sets the system locale, more specifically the LANG= and
LC_MESSAGES settings. The argument should be a valid locale
identifier, such as "de_DE.UTF-8". This controls the
locale.conf(5) configuration file.
Added in version 216.
--keymap=KEYMAP
Sets the system keyboard layout. The argument should be a
valid keyboard map, such as "de-latin1". This controls the
"KEYMAP" entry in the vconsole.conf(5) configuration file.
Added in version 236.
--timezone=TIMEZONE
Sets the system time zone. The argument should be a valid
time zone identifier, such as "Europe/Berlin". This controls
the localtime(5) symlink.
Added in version 216.
--hostname=HOSTNAME
Sets the system hostname. The argument should be a hostname,
compatible with DNS. This controls the hostname(5)
configuration file.
Added in version 216.
--setup-machine-id
Initialize the system's machine ID to a random ID. This
controls the machine-id(5) file.
This option only works in combination with --root= or
--image=. On a running system, machine-id is written by the
manager with help from systemd-machine-id-commit.service(8).
Added in version 216.
--machine-id=ID
Set the system's machine ID to the specified value. The same
restrictions apply as to --setup-machine-id.
Added in version 216.
--root-password=PASSWORD, --root-password-file=PATH,
--root-password-hashed=HASHED_PASSWORD
Sets the password of the system's root user. This
creates/modifies the passwd(5) and shadow(5) files. This
setting exists in three forms: --root-password= accepts the
password to set directly on the command line,
--root-password-file= reads it from a file and
--root-password-hashed= accepts an already hashed password on
the command line. See shadow(5) for more information on the
format of the hashed password. Note that it is not
recommended to specify plaintext passwords on the command
line, as other users might be able to see them simply by
invoking ps(1).
Added in version 216.
--root-shell=SHELL
Sets the shell of the system's root user. This
creates/modifies the passwd(5) file.
Added in version 246.
--kernel-command-line=CMDLINE
Sets the system's kernel command line. This controls the
/etc/kernel/cmdline file which is used by kernel-install(8).
Added in version 246.
--prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap, --prompt-timezone,
--prompt-hostname, --prompt-root-password, --prompt-root-shell
Prompt the user interactively for a specific basic setting.
Note that any explicit configuration settings specified on
the command line take precedence, and the user is not
prompted for it.
Added in version 216.
--prompt
Query the user for locale, keymap, timezone, hostname, root's
password, and root's shell. This is equivalent to specifying
--prompt-locale, --prompt-keymap, --prompt-timezone,
--prompt-hostname, --prompt-root-password,
--prompt-root-shell in combination.
Added in version 216.
--copy-locale, --copy-keymap, --copy-timezone,
--copy-root-password, --copy-root-shell
Copy a specific basic setting from the host. This only works
in combination with --root= or --image=.
Added in version 216.
--copy
Copy locale, keymap, time zone, root password and shell from
the host. This is equivalent to specifying --copy-locale,
--copy-keymap, --copy-timezone, --copy-root-password,
--copy-root-shell in combination.
Added in version 216.
--force
Write configuration even if the relevant files already exist.
Without this option, systemd-firstboot doesn't modify or
replace existing files. Note that when configuring the root
account, even with this option, systemd-firstboot only
modifies the entry of the "root" user, leaving other entries
in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow intact.
Added in version 246.
--reset
If specified, all existing files that are configured by
systemd-firstboot are removed. Note that the files are
removed regardless of whether they'll be configured with a
new value or not. This operation ensures that the next boot
of the image will be considered a first boot, and
systemd-firstboot will prompt again to configure each of the
removed files.
Added in version 254.
--delete-root-password
Removes the password of the system's root user, enabling
login as root without a password unless the root account is
locked. Note that this is extremely insecure and hence this
option should not be used lightly.
Added in version 246.
--welcome=
Takes a boolean argument. By default when prompting the user
for configuration options a brief welcome text is shown
before the first question is asked. Pass false to this option
to turn off the welcome text.
Added in version 246.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
CREDENTIALS
systemd-firstboot supports the service credentials logic as
implemented by ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential=
(see systemd.exec(5) for details). The following credentials are
used when passed in:
passwd.hashed-password.root, passwd.plaintext-password.root
A hashed or plaintext version of the root password to use, in
place of prompting the user. These credentials are equivalent
to the same ones defined for the systemd-sysusers.service(8)
service.
Added in version 249.
passwd.shell.root
Specifies the shell binary to use for the specified account.
Equivalent to the credential of the same name defined for the
systemd-sysusers.service(8) service.
Added in version 249.
firstboot.locale, firstboot.locale-messages
These credentials specify the locale settings to set during
first boot, in place of prompting the user.
Added in version 249.
firstboot.keymap
This credential specifies the keyboard setting to set during
first boot, in place of prompting the user.
Note the relationship to the vconsole.keymap credential
understood by systemd-vconsole-setup.service(8): both
ultimately affect the same setting, but firstboot.keymap is
written into /etc/vconsole.conf on first boot (if not already
configured), and then read from there by
systemd-vconsole-setup, while vconsole.keymap is read on
every boot, and is not persisted to disk (but any
configuration in vconsole.conf will take precedence if
present).
Added in version 249.
firstboot.timezone
This credential specifies the system timezone setting to set
during first boot, in place of prompting the user.
Added in version 249.
Note that by default the systemd-firstboot.service unit file is
set up to inherit the listed credentials from the service
manager. Thus, when invoking a container with an unpopulated
/etc/ for the first time it is possible to configure the root
user's password to be "systemd" like this:
# systemd-nspawn --image=... --set-credential=firstboot.locale:de_DE.UTF-8 ...
Note that these credentials are only read and applied during the
first boot. Once they are applied they remain applied for
subsequent boots, and the credentials are not considered anymore.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
KERNEL COMMAND LINE
systemd.firstboot=
Takes a boolean argument, defaults to on. If off,
systemd-firstboot.service won't interactively query the user
for basic settings at first boot, even if those settings are
not initialized yet.
Added in version 233.
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), locale.conf(5), vconsole.conf(5), localtime(5),
hostname(5), machine-id(5), shadow(5),
systemd-machine-id-setup(1), localectl(1), timedatectl(1),
hostnamectl(1)
NOTES
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/discoverable_partitions_specification
COLOPHON
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
manager) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have
a bug report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩.
This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2024-06-13.) If you discover any rendering
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(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
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systemd 257~devel SYSTEMD-FIRSTBOOT(1)
Pages that refer to this page: homectl(1), hostnamectl(1), importctl(1), localectl(1), machinectl(1), systemd-machine-id-setup(1), systemd-nspawn(1), timedatectl(1), hostname(5), locale.conf(5), localtime(5), machine-id(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd.system-credentials(7), systemd-machine-id-commit.service(8)