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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | USE AS A MOUNT HELPER | EXAMPLES | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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STORAGECTL(1) storagectl STORAGECTL(1)
storagectl, mount.storage - Enumerate and mount storage volumes
provided by storage providers
storagectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND} [NAME...]
mount -t storage PROVIDER:VOLUME DIRECTORY
mount -t storage.FSTYPE PROVIDER:VOLUME DIRECTORY
storagectl may be used to inspect storage providers and the
storage volumes they expose. A storage provider is a service
implementing the io.systemd.StorageProvider Varlink[1] interface,
registered as an AF_UNIX socket below the well-known socket
directory /run/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/ (in system
mode) or $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/ (in
user mode). The two storage providers shipped with systemd are
systemd-storage-block@.service(8), which exposes the system's
block devices, and systemd-storage-fs@.service(8), which exposes
regular files and directories from a backing file system.
The tool also provides a mount(8) helper for the file system type
"storage", which permits mounting storage volumes to arbitrary
places. See "Use as a mount helper" below for details.
The following commands are understood:
volumes [GLOB]
List storage volumes provided by all storage providers running
on the system (or, with --user, in the user runtime). The
optional GLOB argument is a shell-style pattern (see
fnmatch(3)) that filters the result by volume name. The output
is a table containing the providing service, the volume name,
its type ("blk", "reg" or "dir"), whether it is read-only, and
— if known — its size and the number of bytes used.
This is the default command if none is specified.
Added in version 261.
templates [GLOB]
List volume templates supported by the running storage
providers. Templates encapsulate a configuration to use when
creating volumes on-the-fly, when they are acquired. Template
support is an optional feature for providers, and only applies
to providers that allow creation of volumes on-the-fly. See
the respective provider documentation for details, for example
systemd-storage-fs@.service(8). The optional GLOB argument
filters by template name. Storage providers that do not
implement template-based volume creation (such as the
block-device provider) do not contribute to this output.
Added in version 261.
providers
List the storage providers known to the system. This is
determined by scanning the well-known socket directory for
AF_UNIX sockets that look like io.systemd.StorageProvider
endpoints. For each provider it is also reported whether the
socket can currently be connected to.
Added in version 261.
The following options are understood:
--system
Operate on system-wide storage providers. Sockets are looked
for in /run/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/. This is the
default.
Added in version 261.
--user
Operate on per-user storage providers. Sockets are looked for
in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/systemd/io.systemd.StorageProvider/.
Added in version 261.
--json=MODE
Shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of "short" (for
the shortest possible output without any redundant whitespace
or line breaks), "pretty" (for a pretty version of the same,
with indentation and line breaks) or "off" (to turn off JSON
output, the default).
--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.
--no-ask-password
Do not query the user for authentication for privileged
operations.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
The tool provides the /sbin/mount.storage alias, implementing the
mount(8) "external helper" interface, allowing storage volumes to
be mounted with the regular mount command. The volume to mount is
encoded as the source of the mount, in the form "PROVIDER:VOLUME",
where PROVIDER is the name of a storage provider (as listed by
storagectl providers) and VOLUME is the volume name. Two file
system type spellings are recognized:
"storage"
Acquires a directory volume and bind-mounts its directory tree
onto the target.
Added in version 261.
"storage.FSTYPE"
Acquires a regular file or block device volume and mounts it
as a file system of type FSTYPE (for example "storage.ext4",
"storage.btrfs", ...).
Added in version 261.
The standard -o mount options are forwarded to mount. In addition,
the following "storage."-prefixed options are interpreted by
mount.storage itself and stripped from the forwarded list:
storage.create=MODE
Takes one of "any" (open if it exists, otherwise create — the
default), "open" (fail if the volume does not yet exist) or
"new" (fail if the volume already exists).
Added in version 261.
storage.template=NAME
The template to use when creating a new volume, if it is
missing and the provider supports on-the-fly creation of
volumes.
Added in version 261.
storage.create-size=BYTES
When creating a new volume on-the-fly, the size in bytes to
allocate. Accepts the usual "K"/"M"/"G"/"T" suffixes (base
1024). Required when creating a regular file volume.
Added in version 261.
Example 1. Enumerate available storage providers, volumes and
templates
$ storagectl providers
$ storagectl volumes
$ storagectl volumes '*foo*'
$ storagectl templates
Example 2. Mount a directory volume from the file system provider
# mount -t storage fs:myvol /mnt/myvol
If the volume "myvol" does not yet exist, it will be created using
the default "subvolume" template.
Example 3. Create and mount an ext4 file system from a regular
file.
# mount -t storage.ext4 fs:scratch /mnt/scratch -o loop
Example 4. Mount a block device volume read-only
# mount -t storage.ext4 -o ro block:/dev/disk/by-id/usb-foo /mnt/foo
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. See syslog(3) for more
information. Each value may optionally be prefixed with one of
console, syslog, kmsg or journal followed by a colon to set
the maximum log level for that specific log target (e.g.
SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug,console:info specifies 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, because journalctl(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, because journalctl(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 of console (log to the
attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but
with prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see
syslog(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-pager is 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, including less(1) and
more(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 to less (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 allow less to 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 is less, 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 for less invocations by systemd tools.
See less(1) for more discussion.
$SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
Override the charset passed to less (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 for less invocations by systemd tools.
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
Common pager commands like less(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 under sudo(8) or pkexec(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 the
pager 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-pager or PAGER=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=1 will be set when invoking the pager, which
instructs the pager to disable commands that open or create
new files or start new subprocesses. Currently only less(1) is
known to understand this variable and implement "secure mode".
When set to false, no limitation is placed on the pager.
Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the
inherited environment may allow the user to invoke arbitrary
commands.
When $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, systemd tools attempt to
automatically figure out if "secure mode" should be enabled
and whether the pager supports it. "Secure mode" is enabled if
the effective UID is not the same as the owner of the login
session, see geteuid(2) and sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3), or when
running under sudo(8) or similar tools ($SUDO_UID is set [2]).
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, or a special value. By default
(unset), systemd and related utilities will use colors in
their output if possible. If $COLORTERM is set to "truecolor"
or "24bit", 24-bit colors will be enabled, 256 colors
otherwise, unless $NO_COLOR or $TERM indicates colors are
disabled.
true
Same as unset, except that $NO_COLOR is ignored.
false
The output will be monochrome.
"16", "256", "24bit"
Always use the base 16 ANSI colors, 256 colors, or 24 bit
color, respectively.
"auto-16", "auto-256", "auto-24bit"
Use the given quantity of colours, subject to $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 that systemd makes based on $TERM and other
conditions.
systemd(1), systemd-storage-block@.service(8),
systemd-storage-fs@.service(8), varlinkctl(1), mount(8)
1. Varlink
https://varlink.org/
2. 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 the systemd (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 2026-05-24. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2026-05-24.) 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 is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
systemd 261~rc1 STORAGECTL(1)
Pages that refer to this page: machinectl(1), systemd-vmspawn(1), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd-storage-block@.service(8), systemd-storage-fs@.service(8)
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HTML rendering created 2026-05-24 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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