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NAME |SYNOPSIS |DESCRIPTION |COMMANDS |OPTIONS |EXIT STATUS |ENVIRONMENT |EXAMPLES |SEE ALSO |NOTES |COLOPHON | |
UPDATECTL(1) updatectlUPDATECTL(1)updatectl - Control the system update service
updatectl[OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [TARGET...]updatectlmay be used to check for and install system updates managed bysystemd-sysupdated.service(8).
The following commands are understood:list[TARGET[@VERSION]] Show information about targets and their versions. When noTARGET is specified, this command lists all available targets. When aTARGET is specified without aVERSION, this command lists all known versions of the specified target. If aVERSION is specified, this command lists all known information about the specific version. See the example below for details of the output. Added in version 257.check[TARGET...] Check if any updates are available for the specified targets. If no targets are specified, all available targets will be checked for updates. See the example below for details of the output. Added in version 257.update[TARGET[@VERSION]...] Update the specified targets to the specified versions. If a target is specified without a version, then it will be updated to the latest version. If no targets are specified, then all available targets will be updated to the latest version. Added in version 257.vacuum[TARGET...] Clean up old versions of the specified targets. If no targets are specified, all available targets will be vacuumed. Added in version 257.features[FEATURE] When noFEATURE is specified, this command lists all optional features. When aFEATURE is specified, this command lists all known information about that feature. Added in version 257.enableFEATURE...,disableFEATURE... These commands enable or disable optional features. Seesysupdate.features(5). These commands always operate on the host system. By default, these commands will only change the system's configuration by creating or deleting drop-in files; they will not immediately download the enabled features, or clean up after the disabled ones. Enabled features will be downloaded and installed the next time the target is updated, and disabled transfers will be cleaned up the next time the target is updated or vacuumed. Pass--nowto immediately apply these changes. Added in version 257.-h,--help Print a short help text and exit.--version Print a short version string and exit.
The following commands are understood:--reboot When used with theupdatecommand, reboots the system after updates finish applying. If any update fails, the system will not reboot. When used with theenableordisablecommands and the--now flag, reboots the system after download or clean-up finish applying. Added in version 257.--offline When used with thelistcommand, disables fetching metadata from the network. This makes thelistcommand only return information that is available locally (i.e. about versions already installed on the system). Added in version 257.--now When used with theenablecommand, downloads and installs the enabled features. When used with thedisablecommand, deletes all resources downloaded by the disabled features. Added in version 257.-H,--host= Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a port ssh is listening on, separated by ":", and then a container name, separated by "/", which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated withmachinectl -HHOST. Put IPv6 addresses in brackets.--no-pager Do not pipe output into a pager.--no-legend Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the footer with hints.
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
$SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). Takes a comma-separated list of values. A value may be either one of (in order of decreasing importance)emerg,alert,crit,err,warning,notice,info,debug, or an integer in the range 0...7. Seesyslog(3) for more information. Each value may optionally be prefixed with one ofconsole,syslog,kmsgorjournalfollowed by a colon to set the maximum log level for that specific log target (e.g.SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug,console:infospecifies to log at debug level except when logging to the console which should be at info level). Note that the global maximum log level takes priority over any per target maximum log levels.$SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored according to priority. This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to the terminal, becausejournalctl(1) and other tools that display logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.$SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a timestamp. This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to the terminal or a file, becausejournalctl(1) and other tools that display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on their own.$SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and line number in the source code where the message originates. Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.$SYSTEMD_LOG_TID A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with the current numerical thread ID (TID). Note that the this information is attached as metadata to journal entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.$SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET The destination for log messages. One ofconsole(log to the attached tty),console-prefixed(log to the attached tty but with prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", seesyslog(3),kmsg(log to the kernel circular log buffer),journal(log to the journal),journal-or-kmsg(log to the journal if available, and to kmsg otherwise),auto(determine the appropriate log target automatically, the default),null (disable log output).$SYSTEMD_LOG_RATELIMIT_KMSG Whether to ratelimit kmsg or not. Takes a boolean. Defaults to "true". If disabled, systemd will not ratelimit messages written to kmsg.$SYSTEMD_PAGER,$PAGER Pager to use when--no-pageris not given.$SYSTEMD_PAGER is used if set; otherwise$PAGER is used. If neither$SYSTEMD_PAGER nor$PAGER are set, a set of well-known pager implementations is tried in turn, includingless(1) andmore(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is discovered, no pager is invoked. Setting those environment variables to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing--no-pager. Note: if$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set,$SYSTEMD_PAGER and$PAGER can only be used to disable the pager (with "cat" or ""), and are otherwise ignored.$SYSTEMD_LESS Override the options passed toless(by default "FRSXMK"). Users might want to change two options in particular:K This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C is pressed. To allowlessto handle Ctrl+C itself to switch back to the pager command prompt, unset this option. If the value of$SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the pager that is invoked isless, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.X This option instructs the pager to not send termcap initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse. Note that setting the regular$LESS environment variable has no effect forlessinvocations by systemd tools. Seeless(1) for more discussion.$SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET Override the charset passed toless(by default "utf-8", if the invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible). Note that setting the regular$LESSCHARSET environment variable has no effect forlessinvocations by systemd tools.$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE Common pager commands likeless(1), in addition to "paging", i.e. scrolling through the output, support opening of or writing to other files and running arbitrary shell commands. When commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for example undersudo(8) orpkexec(1), the pager becomes a security boundary. Care must be taken that only programs with strictly limited functionality are used as pagers, and unintended interactive features like opening or creation of new files or starting of subprocesses are not allowed. "Secure mode" for the pager may be enabled as described below,if thepager supports that (most pagers are not written in a way that takes this into consideration). It is recommended to either explicitly enable "secure mode" or to completely disable the pager using--no-pagerorPAGER=cat when allowing untrusted users to execute commands with elevated privileges. This option takes a boolean argument. When set to true, the "secure mode" of the pager is enabled. In "secure mode",LESSSECURE=1will be set when invoking the pager, which instructs the pager to disable commands that open or create new files or start new subprocesses. Currently onlyless(1) is known to understand this variable and implement "secure mode". When set to false, no limitation is placed on the pager. SettingSYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited environment may allow the user to invoke arbitrary commands. When$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, systemd tools attempt to automatically figure out if "secure mode" should be enabled and whether the pager supports it. "Secure mode" is enabled if the effective UID is not the same as the owner of the login session, seegeteuid(2) andsd_pid_get_owner_uid(3), or when running undersudo(8) or similar tools ($SUDO_UID is set [1]). In those cases,SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=1 will be set and pagers which are not known to implement "secure mode" will not be used at all. Note that this autodetection only covers the most common mechanisms to elevate privileges and is intended as convenience. It is recommended to explicitly set$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE or disable the pager. Note that if the$SYSTEMD_PAGER or$PAGER variables are to be honoured, other than to disable the pager,$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too.$SYSTEMD_COLORS Takes a boolean argument. When true,systemdand related utilities will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be specified to override the automatic decision based on$TERM and what the console is connected to.$SYSTEMD_URLIFY The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting this. This can be specified to override the decision thatsystemdmakes based on$TERM and other conditions.
Note that these examples are just here for demonstration purposes, and the output of these commands is free to change. These commands are intended for display to a user. If you'd like machine-readable output, use theorg.freedesktop.sysupdate1(5) D-Bus API directly.Example 1. Output from list $updatectl list TARGET VERSION PATH host 48 sysupdate.d machine:fedora 38 /var/lib/machines/fedora.raw component:shim 15.7 sysupdate.shim.d $updatectl list host VERSION STATUS ↻ 50 candidate 49 available ● 48 current 47 available 46 available 45 available [...] × 25 available+obsolete × 24 available+obsolete × 23 available+obsolete [...] $updatectl list host@49 ↻ Version: 50 State: candidate ChangeLog:https://vendor.com/os/v50.html TYPE PATH PTUUID PTFLAGS SHA256 url-filehttp://dl.vendor.com/os/uki_50 - - 90f6534282dd720f7a222fa781086990dc9c83e5c7499f085970a8e75e3ac349 url-filehttp://dl.vendor.com/os/usr_50_981a5b84-a301-c819-f681-3e575fe16f16 981a5b84-a301-c819-f681-3e575fe16f16 - c0596ab1095258ec6f16c7c281a50d71c419a9f587c1ef858cfbbb69fb0a16f3 url-filehttp://dl.vendor.com/os/verity_50_2f8d0f3b-f80a-6ddc-a556-3722bfbb5b79 2f8d0f3b-f80a-6ddc-a556-3722bfbb5b79 - e1e90a128e038b3a53455e55d1ca717c743aba31fe6b4b4624109df0243c6338 url-filehttp://dl.vendor.com/os/verity_sig_50 - - ca3d163bab055381827226140568f3bef7eaac187cebd76878e0b63e9e442356Example 2. Checking for and installing updates $updatectl check TARGET UPDATE host 48 → 50 machine:fedora 38 → 40 $updatectl update host machine:fedora@39 [...] ✓ host@50 ✓ machine:fedora@39
systemd(1),systemd-sysupdate(8)systemd-sysupdated.service(8)sysupdate.d(5),
1. It is recommended for other tools to set and check$SUDO_UID as appropriate, treating it is a common interface.
This page is part of thesystemd (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 2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the repository was 2025-08-11.) If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which isnot part of the original manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.orgsystemd 258~rc2UPDATECTL(1)Pages that refer to this page:org.freedesktop.sysupdate1(5), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd-sysupdated.service(8)
HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 byMichael Kerrisk, author ofThe Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depthLinux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, lookhere. Hosting byjambit GmbH. | |