List currently running (online) virtual machines and containers. To enumerate container images that can be started, use list-images (see below).

Show terse 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 an 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. 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, see below.

Open an interactive terminal login session to a container. This will create a TTY connection to a specific container 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, which then asks for username and password. Use systemd-run(1) with the --machine= switch to invoke a single command, either interactively or in the background within a local container.

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. 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 the source directory on the host. 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 an 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 disk 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 subvolume images with this command. 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.

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

Marks or (unmarks) a container or disk 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 disk images. The special image ".host", which refers to the host's own directory tree may not be removed.

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 the name 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 behaviour 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 now 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 the name 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 the downloaded image is in .qcow2 format it es 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 behaviour of pull-tar, the read-only image is prefixed with .raw-, and thus now 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 "dkr" container image and makes it available locally. The remote name refers to a "dkr" container name. If omitted, the local machine name is derived from the "dkr" container name.

Image verification is not available for "dkr" containers, and thus --verify=no must always be specified with this command.

This command downloads all (missing) layers for the specified container and places them in read-only subvolumes in /var/lib/machines/. A writable snapshot of the newest layer is then created under the specified local machine name. To omit creation of this writable snapshot, pass "-" as local machine name.

The read-only layer subvolumes are prefixed with .dkr-, and thus now shown by list-images, unless --all is passed.

To specify the "dkr" index server to use for looking up the specified container, use --dkr-index-url=.

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

Shows a list of container or VM image downloads that are currently in progress.

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