Man page - rpi-systemd-config(1)

Packages contas this manual

Manual

RPI-SYSTEMD-CONFIG(1) RPI-SYSTEMD-CONFIG(1)

rpi-systemd-config - Query systemd configuration files

rpi-systemd-config [--version] NAME [VARIABLE KEY]...

rpi-systemd-config extracts values from systemd configuration files and outputs shell variable assignments. It uses systemd’s own configuration parsing logic, following the same precedence rules and drop-in directory support as systemd itself.

Supports both Debian Bookworm (systemd 252) and Debian Trixie (systemd 257).

The tool searches configuration files using systemd’s standard directory hierarchy and supports drop-in configuration files as described in systemd.unit(5).

NAME
Configuration file name relative to the systemd configuration prefix (e.g., systemd/system.conf, systemd/logind.conf).
Pairs of shell variable names and configuration keys. Each KEY must be in the format section::key.

Show version information and exit.
Show help message and exit.

rpi-systemd-config follows systemd’s standard lookup order:

1.
/etc/_NAME_ - Local administrator configuration
2.
/run/_NAME_ - Runtime configuration

3.
/usr/local/lib/_NAME_ - Local package configuration
4.
/usr/lib/_NAME_ - Distribution package configuration

Drop-in files from corresponding .d directories are processed following the same precedence rules.

For each configuration entry found, outputs a shell variable assignment:

VARIABLE='value'

Values are properly escaped for shell consumption. Missing entries produce no output.

Use in shell scripts:

#!/bin/bash
eval "$(rpi-systemd-config systemd/system.conf \


    DEFAULT_TIMEOUT Manager::DefaultTimeoutStopSec \


    DEFAULT_RESTART Manager::DefaultRestartSec)"
if [ -n "${DEFAULT_TIMEOUT:-}" ]; then


    echo "System default timeout is configured: $DEFAULT_TIMEOUT"
else


    echo "Using systemd built-in default timeout"
fi

Exits with status 0 on success. Missing configuration entries do not cause non-zero exit status.

systemd-analyze cat-config shows complete file contents with comments, whilst rpi-systemd-config extracts specific values for programmatic use:

$ rpi-systemd-config systemd/system.conf TIMEOUT Manager::DefaultTimeoutStopSec
TIMEOUT='30s'

•
Only supports configuration files that use systemd’s standard configuration parser
•
Requires access to systemd’s internal shared library
•
Supports systemd versions 252 and 257
•
Value parsing: Uses systemd’s generic string parser (config_parse_string) only. Does not perform specialized validation or parsing that systemd uses internally (such as config_parse_bool, config_parse_hw_addr, config_parse_percent, etc.). Values are returned as raw strings exactly as they appear in configuration files, without type validation or conversion.

systemd(1), systemd-analyze(1), systemd.syntax(7), systemd.unit(5), apt-config(8)

rpi-systemd-config uses systemd’s own configuration parsing functions to ensure compatibility. The output format is designed for consumption by shell eval statements, similar to apt-config(8).