systemd-analyze time

This command prints the time spent in the kernel before userspace has been reached, the time spent in the initrd before normal system userspace has been reached, and the time normal system userspace took to initialize. Note that these measurements simply measure the time passed up to the point where all system services have been spawned, but not necessarily until they fully finished initialization or the disk is idle.

Example 1. Show how long the boot took

# in a container
$ systemd-analyze time
Startup finished in 296ms (userspace)
multi-user.target reached after 275ms in userspace
# on a real machine
$ systemd-analyze time
Startup finished in 2.584s (kernel) + 19.176s (initrd) + 47.847s (userspace) = 1min 9.608s
multi-user.target reached after 47.820s in userspace

systemd-analyze blame

This command prints a list of all running units, ordered by the time they took to initialize. This information may be used to optimize boot-up times. Note that the output might be misleading as the initialization of one service might be slow simply because it waits for the initialization of another service to complete. Also note: systemd-analyze blame doesn't display results for services with Type=simple, because systemd considers such services to be started immediately, hence no measurement of the initialization delays can be done. Also note that this command only shows the time units took for starting up, it does not show how long unit jobs spent in the execution queue. In particular it shows the time units spent in "activating" state, which is not defined for units such as device units that transition directly from "inactive" to "active". This command hence gives an impression of the performance of program code, but cannot accurately reflect latency introduced by waiting for hardware and similar events.

Example 2. Show which units took the most time during boot

$ systemd-analyze blame
         32.875s pmlogger.service
         20.905s systemd-networkd-wait-online.service
         13.299s dev-vda1.device
         ...
            23ms sysroot.mount
            11ms initrd-udevadm-cleanup-db.service
             3ms sys-kernel-config.mount

systemd-analyze critical-chain [UNIT...]

This command prints a tree of the time-critical chain of units (for each of the specified UNITs or for the default target otherwise). The time after the unit is active or started is printed after the "@" character. The time the unit takes to start is printed after the "+" character. Note that the output might be misleading as the initialization of services might depend on socket activation and because of the parallel execution of units. Also, similarly to the blame command, this only takes into account the time units spent in "activating" state, and hence does not cover units that never went through an "activating" state (such as device units that transition directly from "inactive" to "active"). Moreover it does not show information on jobs (and in particular not jobs that timed out).

Example 3. systemd-analyze critical-chain

$ systemd-analyze critical-chain
multi-user.target @47.820s
└─pmie.service @35.968s +548ms
  └─pmcd.service @33.715s +2.247s
    └─network-online.target @33.712s
      └─systemd-networkd-wait-online.service @12.804s +20.905s
        └─systemd-networkd.service @11.109s +1.690s
          └─systemd-udevd.service @9.201s +1.904s
            └─systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service @7.306s +1.776s
              └─kmod-static-nodes.service @6.976s +177ms
                └─systemd-journald.socket
                  └─system.slice
                    └─-.slice

systemd-analyze dump [pattern...]

Without any parameter, this command outputs a (usually very long) human-readable serialization of the complete service manager state. Optional glob pattern may be specified, causing the output to be limited to units whose names match one of the patterns. The output format is subject to change without notice and should not be parsed by applications. This command is rate limited for unprivileged users.

Example 4. Show the internal state of user manager

$ systemd-analyze --user dump
Timestamp userspace: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
Timestamp finish: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
Timestamp generators-start: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
Timestamp generators-finish: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
Timestamp units-load-start: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
Timestamp units-load-finish: Thu 2019-03-14 23:28:07 CET
-> Unit proc-timer_list.mount:
        Description: /proc/timer_list
        ...
-> Unit default.target:
        Description: Main user target
...

systemd-analyze malloc [D-Bus service...]

This command can be used to request the output of the internal memory state (as returned by malloc_info(3)) of a D-Bus service. If no service is specified, the query will be sent to org.freedesktop.systemd1 (the system or user service manager). The output format is not guaranteed to be stable and should not be parsed by applications.

The service must implement the org.freedesktop.MemoryAllocation1 interface. In the systemd suite, it is currently only implemented by the manager.

systemd-analyze plot

This command prints either an SVG graphic, detailing which system services have been started at what time, highlighting the time they spent on initialization, or the raw time data in JSON or table format.

Example 5. Plot a bootchart

$ systemd-analyze plot >bootup.svg
$ eog bootup.svg&

Note that this plot is based on the most recent per-unit timing data of loaded units. This means that if a unit gets started, then stopped and then started again the information shown will cover the most recent start cycle, not the first one. Thus it's recommended to consult this information only shortly after boot, so that this distinction doesn't matter. Moreover, units that are not referenced by any other unit through a dependency might be unloaded by the service manager once they terminate (and did not fail). Such units will not show up in the plot.

systemd-analyze dot [pattern...]

This command generates textual dependency graph description in dot format for further processing with the GraphViz dot(1) tool. Use a command line like systemd-analyze dot | dot -Tsvg >systemd.svg to generate a graphical dependency tree. Unless --order or --require is passed, the generated graph will show both ordering and requirement dependencies. Optional pattern globbing style specifications (e.g. *.target) may be given at the end. A unit dependency is included in the graph if any of these patterns match either the origin or destination node.

Example 6. Plot all dependencies of any unit whose name starts with "avahi-daemon"

$ systemd-analyze dot 'avahi-daemon.*' | dot -Tsvg >avahi.svg
$ eog avahi.svg

Example 7. Plot the dependencies between all known target units

$ systemd-analyze dot --to-pattern='*.target' --from-pattern='*.target' \
      | dot -Tsvg >targets.svg
$ eog targets.svg

systemd-analyze unit-paths

This command outputs a list of all directories from which unit files, .d overrides, and .wants, .requires symlinks may be loaded. Combine with --user to retrieve the list for the user manager instance, and --global for the global configuration of user manager instances.

Example 8. Show all paths for generated units

$ systemd-analyze unit-paths | grep '^/run'
/run/systemd/system.control
/run/systemd/transient
/run/systemd/generator.early
/run/systemd/system
/run/systemd/system.attached
/run/systemd/generator
/run/systemd/generator.late

Note that this verb prints the list that is compiled into systemd-analyze itself, and does not communicate with the running manager. Use

systemctl [--user] [--global] show -p UnitPath --value

to retrieve the actual list that the manager uses, with any empty directories omitted.

systemd-analyze exit-status [STATUS...]

This command prints a list of exit statuses along with their "class", i.e. the source of the definition (one of "glibc", "systemd", "LSB", or "BSD"), see the Process Exit Codes section in systemd.exec(5). If no additional arguments are specified, all known statuses are shown. Otherwise, only the definitions for the specified codes are shown.

Example 9. Show some example exit status names

$ systemd-analyze exit-status 0 1 {63..65}
NAME    STATUS CLASS
SUCCESS 0      glibc
FAILURE 1      glibc
-       63     -
USAGE   64     BSD
DATAERR 65     BSD

systemd-analyze capability [CAPABILITY...]

This command prints a list of Linux capabilities along with their numeric IDs. See capabilities(7) for details. If no argument is specified the full list of capabilities known to the service manager and the kernel is shown. Capabilities defined by the kernel but not known to the service manager are shown as "cap_???". Optionally, if arguments are specified they may refer to specific cabilities by name or numeric ID, in which case only the indicated capabilities are shown in the table.

Example 10. Show some example capability names

$ systemd-analyze capability 0 1 {30..32}
NAME              NUMBER
cap_chown              0
cap_dac_override       1
cap_audit_control     30
cap_setfcap           31
cap_mac_override      32

systemd-analyze condition CONDITION...

This command will evaluate Condition*=... and Assert*=... assignments, and print their values, and the resulting value of the combined condition set. See systemd.unit(5) for a list of available conditions and asserts.

Example 11. Evaluate conditions that check kernel versions

$ systemd-analyze condition 'ConditionKernelVersion = ! <4.0' \
        'ConditionKernelVersion = >=5.1' \
        'ConditionACPower=|false' \
        'ConditionArchitecture=|!arm' \
        'AssertPathExists=/etc/os-release'
test.service: AssertPathExists=/etc/os-release succeeded.
Asserts succeeded.
test.service: ConditionArchitecture=|!arm succeeded.
test.service: ConditionACPower=|false failed.
test.service: ConditionKernelVersion=>=5.1 succeeded.
test.service: ConditionKernelVersion=!<4.0 succeeded.
Conditions succeeded.

systemd-analyze syscall-filter [SET...]

This command will list system calls contained in the specified system call set SET, or all known sets if no sets are specified. Argument SET must include the "@" prefix.

systemd-analyze filesystems [SET...]

This command will list filesystems in the specified filesystem set SET, or all known sets if no sets are specified. Argument SET must include the "@" prefix.

systemd-analyze calendar EXPRESSION...

This command will parse and normalize repetitive calendar time events, and will calculate when they elapse next. This takes the same input as the OnCalendar= setting in systemd.timer(5), following the syntax described in systemd.time(7). By default, only the next time the calendar expression will elapse is shown; use --iterations= to show the specified number of next times the expression elapses. Each time the expression elapses forms a timestamp, see the timestamp verb below.

Example 12. Show leap days in the near future

$ systemd-analyze calendar --iterations=5 '*-2-29 0:0:0'
  Original form: *-2-29 0:0:0
Normalized form: *-02-29 00:00:00
    Next elapse: Sat 2020-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 11 months 15 days left
       Iter. #2: Thu 2024-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 4 years 11 months left
       Iter. #3: Tue 2028-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 8 years 11 months left
       Iter. #4: Sun 2032-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 12 years 11 months left
       Iter. #5: Fri 2036-02-29 00:00:00 UTC
       From now: 16 years 11 months left

systemd-analyze timestamp TIMESTAMP...

This command parses a timestamp (i.e. a single point in time) and outputs the normalized form and the difference between this timestamp and now. The timestamp should adhere to the syntax documented in systemd.time(7), section "PARSING TIMESTAMPS".

Example 13. Show parsing of timestamps

$ systemd-analyze timestamp yesterday now tomorrow
  Original form: yesterday
Normalized form: Mon 2019-05-20 00:00:00 CEST
       (in UTC): Sun 2019-05-19 22:00:00 UTC
   UNIX seconds: @15583032000
       From now: 1 day 9h ago
  Original form: now
Normalized form: Tue 2019-05-21 09:48:39 CEST
       (in UTC): Tue 2019-05-21 07:48:39 UTC
   UNIX seconds: @1558424919.659757
       From now: 43us ago
  Original form: tomorrow
Normalized form: Wed 2019-05-22 00:00:00 CEST
       (in UTC): Tue 2019-05-21 22:00:00 UTC
   UNIX seconds: @15584760000
       From now: 14h left

systemd-analyze timespan EXPRESSION...

This command parses a time span (i.e. a difference between two timestamps) and outputs the normalized form and the equivalent value in microseconds. The time span should adhere to the syntax documented in systemd.time(7), section "PARSING TIME SPANS". Values without units are parsed as seconds.

Example 14. Show parsing of timespans

$ systemd-analyze timespan 1s 300s '1year 0.000001s'
Original: 1s
      μs: 1000000
   Human: 1s
Original: 300s
      μs: 300000000
   Human: 5min
Original: 1year 0.000001s
      μs: 31557600000001
   Human: 1y 1us

systemd-analyze cat-config NAME|PATH...

This command is similar to systemctl cat, but operates on config files. It will copy the contents of a config file and any drop-ins to standard output, using the usual systemd set of directories and rules for precedence. Each argument must be either an absolute path including the prefix (such as /etc/systemd/logind.conf or /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf), or a name relative to the prefix (such as systemd/logind.conf).

Example 15. Showing logind configuration

$ systemd-analyze cat-config systemd/logind.conf
# /etc/systemd/logind.conf
...
[Login]
NAutoVTs=8
...
# /usr/lib/systemd/logind.conf.d/20-test.conf
... some override from another package
# /etc/systemd/logind.conf.d/50-override.conf
... some administrator override

systemd-analyze compare-versions VERSION1 [OP] VERSION2

This command has two distinct modes of operation, depending on whether the operator OP is specified.

In the first mode — when OP is not specified — it will compare the two version strings and print either "VERSION1 < VERSION2", or "VERSION1 == VERSION2", or "VERSION1 > VERSION2" as appropriate.

The exit status is 0 if the versions are equal, 11 if the version of the right is smaller, and 12 if the version of the left is smaller. (This matches the convention used by rpmdev-vercmp.)

In the second mode — when OP is specified — it will compare the two version strings using the operation OP and return 0 (success) if they condition is satisfied, and 1 (failure) otherwise. OP may be lt, le, eq, ne, ge, gt. In this mode, no output is printed. (This matches the convention used by dpkg(1) --compare-versions.)

Example 16. Compare versions of a package

$ systemd-analyze compare-versions systemd-250~rc1.fc36.aarch64 systemd-251.fc36.aarch64
systemd-250~rc1.fc36.aarch64 < systemd-251.fc36.aarch64
$ echo $?
12
$ systemd-analyze compare-versions 1 lt 2; echo $?
0
$ systemd-analyze compare-versions 1 ge 2; echo $?
1

systemd-analyze verify FILE...

This command will load unit files and print warnings if any errors are detected. Files specified on the command line will be loaded, but also any other units referenced by them. A unit's name on disk can be overridden by specifying an alias after a colon; see below for an example. The full unit search path is formed by combining the directories for all command line arguments, and the usual unit load paths. The variable $SYSTEMD_UNIT_PATH is supported, and may be used to replace or augment the compiled in set of unit load paths; see systemd.unit(5). All units files present in the directories containing the command line arguments will be used in preference to the other paths.

The following errors are currently detected:

Example 17. Misspelt directives

$ cat ./user.slice
[Unit]
WhatIsThis=11
Documentation=man:nosuchfile(1)
Requires=different.service
[Service]
Description=x
$ systemd-analyze verify ./user.slice
[./user.slice:9] Unknown lvalue 'WhatIsThis' in section 'Unit'
[./user.slice:13] Unknown section 'Service'. Ignoring.
Error: org.freedesktop.systemd1.LoadFailed:
   Unit different.service failed to load:
   No such file or directory.
Failed to create user.slice/start: Invalid argument
user.slice: man nosuchfile(1) command failed with code 16

Example 18. Missing service units

$ tail ./a.socket ./b.socket
==> ./a.socket <==
[Socket]
ListenStream=100
==> ./b.socket <==
[Socket]
ListenStream=100
Accept=yes
$ systemd-analyze verify ./a.socket ./b.socket
Service a.service not loaded, a.socket cannot be started.
Service b@0.service not loaded, b.socket cannot be started.

Example 19. Aliasing a unit

$ cat /tmp/source
[Unit]
Description=Hostname printer
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/echo %H
MysteryKey=true
$ systemd-analyze verify /tmp/source
Failed to prepare filename /tmp/source: Invalid argument
$ systemd-analyze verify /tmp/source:alias.service
alias.service:7: Unknown key name 'MysteryKey' in section 'Service', ignoring.

systemd-analyze security [UNIT...]

This command analyzes the security and sandboxing settings of one or more specified service units. If at least one unit name is specified the security settings of the specified service units are inspected and a detailed analysis is shown. If no unit name is specified, all currently loaded, long-running service units are inspected and a terse table with results shown. The command checks for various security-related service settings, assigning each a numeric "exposure level" value, depending on how important a setting is. It then calculates an overall exposure level for the whole unit, which is an estimation in the range 0.0...10.0 indicating how exposed a service is security-wise. High exposure levels indicate very little applied sandboxing. Low exposure levels indicate tight sandboxing and strongest security restrictions. Note that this only analyzes the per-service security features systemd itself implements. This means that any additional security mechanisms applied by the service code itself are not accounted for. The exposure level determined this way should not be misunderstood: a high exposure level neither means that there is no effective sandboxing applied by the service code itself, nor that the service is actually vulnerable to remote or local attacks. High exposure levels do indicate however that most likely the service might benefit from additional settings applied to them.

Please note that many of the security and sandboxing settings individually can be circumvented — unless combined with others. For example, if a service retains the privilege to establish or undo mount points many of the sandboxing options can be undone by the service code itself. Due to that is essential that each service uses the most comprehensive and strict sandboxing and security settings possible. The tool will take into account some of these combinations and relationships between the settings, but not all. Also note that the security and sandboxing settings analyzed here only apply to the operations executed by the service code itself. If a service has access to an IPC system (such as D-Bus) it might request operations from other services that are not subject to the same restrictions. Any comprehensive security and sandboxing analysis is hence incomplete if the IPC access policy is not validated too.

Example 20. Analyze systemd-logind.service

$ systemd-analyze security --no-pager systemd-logind.service
  NAME                DESCRIPTION                              EXPOSURE
✗ PrivateNetwork=     Service has access to the host's network      0.5
✗ User=/DynamicUser=  Service runs as root user                     0.4
✗ DeviceAllow=        Service has no device ACL                     0.2
✓ IPAddressDeny=      Service blocks all IP address ranges
...
→ Overall exposure level for systemd-logind.service: 4.1 OK 🙂

systemd-analyze inspect-elf FILE...

This command will load the specified files, and if they are ELF objects (executables, libraries, core files, etc.) it will parse the embedded packaging metadata, if any, and print it in a table or json format. See the Packaging Metadata[1] documentation for more information.

Example 21. Print information about a core file as JSON

$ systemd-analyze inspect-elf --json=pretty \
        core.fsverity.1000.f77dac5dc161402aa44e15b7dd9dcf97.58561.1637106137000000
{
        "elfType" : "coredump",
        "elfArchitecture" : "AMD x86-64",
        "/home/bluca/git/fsverity-utils/fsverity" : {
                "type" : "deb",
                "name" : "fsverity-utils",
                "version" : "1.3-1",
                "buildId" : "7c895ecd2a271f93e96268f479fdc3c64a2ec4ee"
        },
        "/home/bluca/git/fsverity-utils/libfsverity.so.0" : {
                "type" : "deb",
                "name" : "fsverity-utils",
                "version" : "1.3-1",
                "buildId" : "b5e428254abf14237b0ae70ed85fffbb98a78f88"
        }
}

systemd-analyze fdstore UNIT...

Lists the current contents of the specified service unit's file descriptor store. This shows names, inode types, device numbers, inode numbers, paths and open modes of the open file descriptors. The specified units must have FileDescriptorStoreMax= enabled, see systemd.service(5) for details.

Example 22. Table output

$ systemd-analyze fdstore systemd-journald.service
FDNAME TYPE DEVNO   INODE RDEVNO PATH             FLAGS
stored sock 0:8   4218620 -      socket:[4218620] ro
stored sock 0:8   4213198 -      socket:[4213198] ro
stored sock 0:8   4213190 -      socket:[4213190] ro
...

Note: the "DEVNO" column refers to the major/minor numbers of the device node backing the file system the file descriptor's inode is on. The "RDEVNO" column refers to the major/minor numbers of the device node itself if the file descriptor refers to one. Compare with corresponding .st_dev and .st_rdev fields in struct stat (see stat(2) for details). The listed inode numbers in the "INODE" column are on the file system indicated by "DEVNO".

systemd-analyze image-policy POLICY...

This command analyzes the specified image policy string, as per systemd.image-policy(7). The policy is normalized and simplified. For each currently defined partition identifier (as per the Discoverable Partitions Specification[2]) the effect of the image policy string is shown in tabular form.

Example 23. Example Output

$ systemd-analyze image-policy swap=encrypted:usr=read-only-on+verity:root=encrypted
Analyzing policy: root=encrypted:usr=verity+read-only-on:swap=encrypted
       Long form: root=encrypted:usr=verity+read-only-on:swap=encrypted:=unused+absent
PARTITION       MODE        READ-ONLY GROWFS
root            encrypted   -         -
usr             verity      yes       -
home            ignore      -         -
srv             ignore      -         -
esp             ignore      -         -
xbootldr        ignore      -         -
swap            encrypted   -         -
root-verity     ignore      -         -
usr-verity      unprotected yes       -
root-verity-sig ignore      -         -
usr-verity-sig  ignore      -         -
tmp             ignore      -         -
var             ignore      -         -
default         ignore      -         -

systemd-analyze pcrs [PCR...]

This command shows the known TPM2 PCRs along with their identifying names and current values.

Example 24. Example Output

$ systemd-analyze pcrs
NR NAME                SHA256
 0 platform-code       bcd2eb527108bbb1f5528409bcbe310aa9b74f687854cc5857605993f3d9eb11
 1 platform-config     b60622856eb7ce52637b80f30a520e6e87c347daa679f3335f4f1a600681bb01
 2 external-code       1471262403e9a62f9c392941300b4807fbdb6f0bfdd50abfab752732087017dd
 3 external-config     3d458cfe55cc03ea1f443f1562beec8df51c75e14a9fcf9a7234a13f198e7969
 4 boot-loader-code    939f7fa1458e1f7ce968874d908e524fc0debf890383d355e4ce347b7b78a95c
 5 boot-loader-config  864c61c5ea5ecbdb6951e6cb6d9c1f4b4eac79772f7fe13b8bece569d83d3768
 6 -                   3d458cfe55cc03ea1f443f1562beec8df51c75e14a9fcf9a7234a13f198e7969
 7 secure-boot-policy  9c905bd9b9891bfb889b90a54c4b537b889cfa817c4389cc25754823a9443255
 8 -                   0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
 9 kernel-initrd       9caa29b128113ef42aa53d421f03437be57211e5ebafc0fa8b5d4514ee37ff0c
10 ima                 5ea9e3dab53eb6b483b6ec9e3b2c712bea66bca1b155637841216e0094387400
11 kernel-boot         0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
12 kernel-config       627ffa4b405e911902fe1f1a8b0164693b31acab04f805f15bccfe2209c7eace
13 sysexts             0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
14 shim-policy         0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
15 system-identity     0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
16 debug               0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
17 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
18 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
19 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
20 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
21 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
22 -                   ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
23 application-support 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

systemd-analyze srk [>FILE]

This command reads the Storage Root Key (SRK) from the TPM2 device, and writes it in marshalled TPM2B_PUBLIC format to stdout. The output is non-printable data, so it should be redirected to a file or into a pipe.

Example 25. Save the Storage Root Key to srk.tpm2b_public

systemd-analyze srk >srk.tpm2b_public

systemd-analyze architectures [NAME...]

Lists all known CPU architectures, and which ones are native. The listed architecture names are those ConditionArchitecture= supports, see systemd.unit(5) for details. If architecture names are specified only those specified are listed.

Example 26. Table output

$ systemd-analyze architectures
NAME        SUPPORT
alpha       foreign
arc         foreign
arc-be      foreign
arm         foreign
arm64       foreign
...
sparc       foreign
sparc64     foreign
tilegx      foreign
x86         secondary
x86-64      native