systemd-firstboot initializes basic system settings
interactively during the first boot, or non-interactively on an offline
system image. The service is started during boot if
ConditionFirstBoot=yes is met, which essentially means that /etc/ is
unpopulated, see systemd.unit(5) for details.
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.
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.
systemd-firstboot supports the service credentials logic as
implemented by
ImportCredential=/LoadCredential=/SetCredential= (see
systemd.exec(1) 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 process. Once they are applied they remain applied for subsequent
boots, and the credentials are not considered anymore.