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nspawn: rename --user= to --uid= and repurpose --user/--system for runtime scope

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Rename nspawn's --user=NAME option to --uid=NAME for selecting the
container user. The -u short option is preserved. --user=NAME and
--user NAME are still accepted but emit a deprecation warning. A
pre-parsing step stitches the space-separated --user NAME form into
--user=NAME before getopt sees it, preserving backwards compatibility
despite --user now being an optional_argument.

Repurpose --user (without argument) and --system as standalone
switches for selecting the runtime scope (user vs system service
manager).

Replace all uses of the arg_privileged boolean with
arg_runtime_scope comparisons throughout nspawn. The default scope
is auto-detected from the effective UID.

Co-developed-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Daan De Meyer
2026-04-06 18:49:40 +02:00
committed by Daan De Meyer
parent 1e084aad7d
commit e7fb7296f5
7 changed files with 154 additions and 49 deletions
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man/systemd-nspawn.xml
+23 -3
View File
@@ -629,13 +629,16 @@
<varlistentry>
<term><option>-u</option></term>
<term><option>--user=</option></term>
<term><option>--uid=</option></term>
<listitem><para>After transitioning into the container, change to the specified user defined in the
container's user database. Like all other systemd-nspawn features, this is not a security feature and
provides protection against accidental destructive operations only.</para>
provides protection against accidental destructive operations only. This option was previously named
<option>--user=</option>. The old name is still accepted but deprecated. The short option
<option>-u</option> is compatible with both old and new versions of
<command>systemd-nspawn</command>.</para>
<para>Note that if credentials are used in combination with a non-root <option>--user=</option>
<para>Note that if credentials are used in combination with a non-root <option>--uid=</option>
(e.g.: <option>--set-credential=</option> or <option>--load-credential=</option>), then
<option>--no-new-privileges=yes</option> must be used, and <option>--boot</option> or
<option>--as-pid2</option> must not be used, as the credentials would otherwise be unreadable
@@ -1922,6 +1925,23 @@ After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-ens1.device</programlisting>
<title>Other</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><option>--system</option></term>
<term><option>--user</option></term>
<listitem><para>Specify whether to run in system or user scope. This controls which service manager and
machined instance to interact with, as well as operational defaults such as user namespace mode and
private networking. If neither is specified, <option>--system</option> is implied when running as
root, <option>--user</option> otherwise.</para>
<para>Note: for backwards compatibility, <option>--user</option> followed by a positional argument
is interpreted as the deprecated <option>--user=<replaceable>NAME</replaceable></option> form (now
<option>--uid=</option>). To use <option>--user</option> for scope selection when positional
arguments follow, separate them with <literal>--</literal>.</para>
<xi:include href="version-info.xml" xpointer="v261"/></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="no-pager" />
<xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="help" />
<xi:include href="standard-options.xml" xpointer="version" />