A number of systemd components take additional runtime parameters via environment variables. Many of these environment variables are not supported at the same level as command line switches and other interfaces are: we don't document them in the man pages and we make no stability guarantees for them. While they generally are unlikely to be dropped any time soon again, we do not want to guarantee that they stay around for good either.
Below is an (incomprehensive) list of the environment variables understood by the various tools. Note that this list only covers environment variables not documented in the proper man pages.
All tools:
$SYSTEMD_OFFLINE=[0|1] — if set to 1, then systemctl will refrain from talking to PID 1; this has the same effect as the historical detection of chroot(). Setting this variable to 0 instead has a similar effect as SYSTEMD_IGNORE_CHROOT=1; i.e. tools will try to communicate with PID 1 even if a chroot() environment is detected. You almost certainly want to set this to 1 if you maintain a package build system or similar and are trying to use a modern container system and not plain chroot().
$SYSTEMD_IGNORE_CHROOT=1 — if set, don‘t check whether being invoked in a chroot() environment. This is particularly relevant for systemctl, as it will not alter its behaviour for chroot() environments if set. Normally it refrains from talking to PID 1 in such a case; turning most operations such as start into no-ops. If that’s what's explicitly desired, you might consider setting SYSTEMD_OFFLINE=1.
$SD_EVENT_PROFILE_DELAYS=1 — if set, the sd-event event loop implementation will print latency information at runtime.
$SYSTEMD_PROC_CMDLINE — if set, may contain a string that is used as kernel command line instead of the actual one readable from /proc/cmdline. This is useful for debugging, in order to test generators and other code against specific kernel command lines.
$SYSTEMD_IN_INITRD — takes a boolean. If set, overrides initrd detection. This is useful for debugging and testing initrd-only programs in the main system.
$SYSTEMD_BUS_TIMEOUT=SECS — specifies the maximum time to wait for method call completion. If no time unit is specified, assumes seconds. The usual other units are understood, too (us, ms, s, min, h, d, w, month, y). If it is not set or set to 0, then the built-in default is used.
$SYSTEMD_MEMPOOL=0 — if set, the internal memory caching logic employed by hash tables is turned off, and libc malloc() is used for all allocations.
$SYSTEMD_EMOJI=0 — if set, tools such as “systemd-analyze security” will not output graphical smiley emojis, but ASCII alternatives instead. Note that this only controls use of Unicode emoji glyphs, and has no effect on other Unicode glyphs.
systemctl:
$SYSTEMCTL_FORCE_BUS=1 — if set, do not connect to PID1's private D-Bus listener, and instead always connect through the dbus-daemon D-bus broker.
$SYSTEMCTL_INSTALL_CLIENT_SIDE=1 — if set, enable or disable unit files on the client side, instead of asking PID 1 to do this.
$SYSTEMCTL_SKIP_SYSV=1 — if set, do not call out to SysV compatibility hooks.
systemd-nspawn:
$UNIFIED_CGROUP_HIERARCHY=1 — if set, force nspawn into unified cgroup hierarchy mode.
$SYSTEMD_NSPAWN_API_VFS_WRITABLE=1 — if set, make /sys and /proc/sys and friends writable in the container. If set to “network”, leave only /proc/sys/net writable.
$SYSTEMD_NSPAWN_CONTAINER_SERVICE=… — override the “service” name nspawn uses to register with machined. If unset defaults to “nspawn”, but with this variable may be set to any other value.
$SYSTEMD_NSPAWN_USE_CGNS=0 — if set, do not use cgroup namespacing, even if it is available.
$SYSTEMD_NSPAWN_LOCK=0 — if set, do not lock container images when running.
$SYSTEMD_NSPAWN_TMPFS_TMP=0 — if set, do not overmount /tmp in the container with a tmpfs, but leave the directory from the image in place.
systemd-logind:
$SYSTEMD_BYPASS_HIBERNATION_MEMORY_CHECK=1 — if set, report that hibernation is available even if the swap devices do not provide enough room for it.systemd-udevd:
$NET_NAMING_SCHEME= – if set, takes a network naming scheme (i.e. one of “v238”, “v239”, “v240”…, or the special value “latest”) as parameter. If specified udev's net_id builtin will follow the specified naming scheme when determining stable network interface names. This may be used to revert to naming schemes of older udev versions, in order to provide more stable naming across updates. This environment variable takes precedence over the kernel command line option net.naming-scheme=, except if the value is prefixed with : in which case the kernel command line option takes precedence, if it is specified as well.installed systemd tests:
$SYSTEMD_TEST_DATA — override the location of test data. This is useful if a test executable is moved to an arbitrary location.nss-systemd:
$SYSTEMD_NSS_BYPASS_SYNTHETIC=1 — if set, nss-systemd won't synthesize user/group records for the root and nobody users if they are missing from /etc/passwd.
$SYSTEMD_NSS_DYNAMIC_BYPASS=1 — if set, nss-systemd won't return user/group records for dynamically registered service users (i.e. users registered through DynamicUser=1).
$SYSTEMD_NSS_BYPASS_BUS=1 — if set, nss-systemd won't use D-Bus to do dynamic user lookups. This is primarily useful to make nss-systemd work safely from within dbus-daemon.
systemd-timedated:
$SYSTEMD_TIMEDATED_NTP_SERVICES=… — colon-separated list of unit names of NTP client services. If set, timedatectl set-ntp on enables and starts the first existing unit listed in the environment variable, and timedatectl set-ntp off disables and stops all listed units.systemd-sulogin-shell:
$SYSTEMD_SULOGIN_FORCE=1 — This skips asking for the root password if the root password is not available (such as when the root account is locked). See sulogin(8) for more details.bootctl and other tools that access the EFI System Partition (ESP):
$SYSTEMD_RELAX_ESP_CHECKS=1 — if set, the ESP validation checks are relaxed. Specifically, validation checks that ensure the specified ESP path is a FAT file system are turned off, as are checks that the path is located on a GPT partition with the correct type UUID.
$SYSTEMD_ESP_PATH=… — override the path to the EFI System Partition. This may be used to override ESP path auto detection, and redirect any accesses to the ESP to the specified directory. Not that unlike with bootctl's --path= switch only very superficial validation of the specified path is done when this environment variable is used.
systemd itself:
$SYSTEMD_ACTIVATION_UNIT — set for all NSS and PAM module invocations that are done by the service manager on behalf of a specific unit, in child processes that are later (after execve()) going to become unit processes. Contains the full unit name (e.g. “foobar.service”). NSS and PAM modules can use this information to determine in which context and on whose behalf they are being called, which may be useful to avoid deadlocks, for example to bypass IPC calls to the very service that is about to be started. Note that NSS and PAM modules should be careful to only rely on this data when invoked privileged, or possibly only when getppid() returns 1, as setting environment variables is of course possible in any even unprivileged contexts.
$SYSTEMD_ACTIVATION_SCOPE — closely related to $SYSTEMD_ACTIVATION_UNIT, it is either set to system or user depending on whether the NSS/PAM module is called by systemd in --system or --user mode.
systemd-remount-fs:
$SYSTEMD_REMOUNT_ROOT_RW=1 — if set and and no entry for the root directory exists in /etc/fstab (this file always takes precedence), then the root directory is remounted writable. This is primarily used by systemd-gpt-auto-generator to ensure the root partition is mounted writable in accordance to the GPT partition flags.