From 33d2308c1fb8d18400f3aba8f7fc477d9cd6c5b1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lennart Poettering Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 19:33:36 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] man: document that "systemctl show" shows low-level properties Fixes: #4654 --- man/systemctl.xml | 26 +++++++++++++++----------- 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) diff --git a/man/systemctl.xml b/man/systemctl.xml index 68c8546189..acf975138a 100644 --- a/man/systemctl.xml +++ b/man/systemctl.xml @@ -882,17 +882,21 @@ kobject-uevent 1 systemd-udevd-kernel.socket systemd-udevd.service show PATTERN…|JOB… - Show properties of one or more units, jobs, or the - manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of - the manager will be shown. If a unit name is specified, - properties of the unit are shown, and if a job ID is - specified, properties of the job are shown. By default, empty - properties are suppressed. Use to - show those too. To select specific properties to show, use - . This command is intended to be - used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use - status if you are looking for formatted - human-readable output. + Show properties of one or more units, jobs, or the manager itself. If no argument is specified, + properties of the manager will be shown. If a unit name is specified, properties of the unit are shown, and + if a job ID is specified, properties of the job are shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use + to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use + . This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is + required. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output. + + Many properties shown by systemctl show map directly to configuration settings of + the system and service manager and its unit files. Note that the properties shown by the command are + generally more low-level, normalized versions of the original configuration settings and expose runtime + state in addition to configuration. For example, properties shown for service units include the service's + current main process identifier as MainPID (which is runtime state), and time settings + are always exposed as properties ending in the …USec suffix even if a matching + configuration options end in …Sec, because microseconds is the normalized time unit used + by the system and service manager.