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.TH "MACHINE\-ID" "5" "" "systemd 254" "machine-id"
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.SH "NAME"
machine-id \- Local machine ID configuration file
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.PP
/etc/machine\-id
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
The
/etc/machine\-id
file contains the unique machine ID of the local system that is set during installation or boot\&. The machine ID is a single newline\-terminated, hexadecimal, 32\-character, lowercase ID\&. When decoded from hexadecimal, this corresponds to a 16\-byte/128\-bit value\&. This ID may not be all zeros\&.
.PP
The machine ID is usually generated from a random source during system installation or first boot and stays constant for all subsequent boots\&. Optionally, for stateless systems, it is generated during runtime during early boot if necessary\&.
.PP
The machine ID may be set, for example when network booting, with the
\fIsystemd\&.machine_id=\fR
kernel command line parameter or by passing the option
\fB\-\-machine\-id=\fR
to systemd\&. An ID specified in this manner has higher priority and will be used instead of the ID stored in
/etc/machine\-id\&.
.PP
The machine ID does not change based on local or network configuration or when hardware is replaced\&. Due to this and its greater length, it is a more useful replacement for the
\fBgethostid\fR(3)
call that POSIX specifies\&.
.PP
This machine ID adheres to the same format and logic as the D\-Bus machine ID\&.
.PP
This ID uniquely identifies the host\&. It should be considered "confidential", and must not be exposed in untrusted environments, in particular on the network\&. If a stable unique identifier that is tied to the machine is needed for some application, the machine ID or any part of it must not be used directly\&. Instead the machine ID should be hashed with a cryptographic, keyed hash function, using a fixed, application\-specific key\&. That way the ID will be properly unique, and derived in a constant way from the machine ID but there will be no way to retrieve the original machine ID from the application\-specific one\&. The
\fBsd_id128_get_machine_app_specific\fR(3)
API provides an implementation of such an algorithm\&.
.SH "INITIALIZATION"
.PP
Each machine should have a non\-empty ID in normal operation\&. The ID of each machine should be unique\&. To achieve those objectives,
/etc/machine\-id
can be initialized in a few different ways\&.
.PP
For normal operating system installations, where a custom image is created for a specific machine,
/etc/machine\-id
should be populated during installation\&.
.PP
\fBsystemd-machine-id-setup\fR(1)
may be used by installer tools to initialize the machine ID at install time, but
/etc/machine\-id
may also be written using any other means\&.
.PP
For operating system images which are created once and used on multiple machines, for example for containers or in the cloud,
/etc/machine\-id
should be either missing or an empty file in the generic file system image (the difference between the two options is described under "First Boot Semantics" below)\&. An ID will be generated during boot and saved to this file if possible\&. Having an empty file in place is useful because it allows a temporary file to be bind\-mounted over the real file, in case the image is used read\-only\&. Also see
\m[blue]\fBSafely Building Images\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2\&.
.PP
\fBsystemd-firstboot\fR(1)
may be used to initialize
/etc/machine\-id
on mounted (but not booted) system images\&.
.PP
When a machine is booted with
\fBsystemd\fR(1)
the ID of the machine will be established\&. If
\fIsystemd\&.machine_id=\fR
or
\fB\-\-machine\-id=\fR
options (see first section) are specified, this value will be used\&. Otherwise, the value in
/etc/machine\-id
will be used\&. If this file is empty or missing,
systemd
will attempt to use the D\-Bus machine ID from
/var/lib/dbus/machine\-id, the value of the kernel command line option
\fIcontainer_uuid\fR, the KVM DMI
product_uuid
or the devicetree
vm,uuid
(on KVM systems), the Xen hypervisor
uuid, and finally a randomly generated UUID\&.
.PP
After the machine ID is established,
\fBsystemd\fR(1)
will attempt to save it to
/etc/machine\-id\&. If this fails, it will attempt to bind\-mount a temporary file over
/etc/machine\-id\&. It is an error if the file system is read\-only and does not contain a (possibly empty)
/etc/machine\-id
file\&.
.PP
\fBsystemd-machine-id-commit.service\fR(8)
will attempt to write the machine ID to the file system if
/etc/machine\-id
or
/etc/
are read\-only during early boot but become writable later on\&.
.SH "FIRST BOOT SEMANTICS"
.PP
/etc/machine\-id
is used to decide whether a boot is the first one\&. The rules are as follows:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 1.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  1." 4.2
.\}
The kernel command argument
\fIsystemd\&.condition\-first\-boot=\fR
may be used to override the autodetection logic, see
\fBkernel-command-line\fR(7)\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 2.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  2." 4.2
.\}
Otherwise, if
/etc/machine\-id
does not exist, this is a first boot\&. During early boot,
\fBsystemd\fR
will write
"uninitialized\en"
to this file and overmount a temporary file which contains the actual machine ID\&. Later (after
first\-boot\-complete\&.target
has been reached), the real machine ID will be written to disk\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 3.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  3." 4.2
.\}
If
/etc/machine\-id
contains the string
"uninitialized", a boot is also considered the first boot\&. The same mechanism as above applies\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 4.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  4." 4.2
.\}
If
/etc/machine\-id
exists and is empty, a boot is
\fInot\fR
considered the first boot\&.
\fBsystemd\fR
will still bind\-mount a file containing the actual machine\-id over it and later try to commit it to disk (if
/etc/
is writable)\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 5.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  5." 4.2
.\}
If
/etc/machine\-id
already contains a valid machine\-id, this is not a first boot\&.
.RE
.PP
If according to the above rules a first boot is detected, units with
\fIConditionFirstBoot=yes\fR
will be run and
\fBsystemd\fR
will perform additional initialization steps, in particular presetting units\&.
.SH "RELATION TO OSF UUIDS"
.PP
Note that the machine ID historically is not an OSF UUID as defined by
\m[blue]\fBRFC 4122\fR\m[]\&\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2, nor a Microsoft GUID; however, starting with systemd v30, newly generated machine IDs do qualify as Variant 1 Version 4 UUIDs, as per RFC 4122\&.
.PP
In order to maintain compatibility with existing installations, an application requiring a strictly RFC 4122 compliant UUID should decode the machine ID, and then (non\-reversibly) apply the following operations to turn it into a valid RFC 4122 Variant 1 Version 4 UUID\&. With
"id"
being an unsigned character array:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
/* Set UUID version to 4 \-\-\- truly random generation */
id[6] = (id[6] & 0x0F) | 0x40;
/* Set the UUID variant to DCE */
id[8] = (id[8] & 0x3F) | 0x80;
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.PP
(This code is inspired by
"generate_random_uuid()"
of
drivers/char/random\&.c
from the Linux kernel sources\&.)
.SH "HISTORY"
.PP
The simple configuration file format of
/etc/machine\-id
originates in the
/var/lib/dbus/machine\-id
file introduced by D\-Bus\&. In fact, this latter file might be a symlink to
/etc/machine\-id\&.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
\fBsystemd\fR(1),
\fBsystemd-machine-id-setup\fR(1),
\fBgethostid\fR(3),
\fBhostname\fR(5),
\fBmachine-info\fR(5),
\fBos-release\fR(5),
\fBsd-id128\fR(3),
\fBsd_id128_get_machine\fR(3),
\fBsystemd-firstboot\fR(1)
.SH "NOTES"
.IP " 1." 4
Safely Building Images
.RS 4
\%https://systemd.io/BUILDING_IMAGES
.RE
.IP " 2." 4
RFC 4122
.RS 4
\%https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4122
.RE