systemd-escape(1)

NAME#

systemd-escape - Escape strings for usage in systemd unit names

SYNOPSIS#

systemd-escape [OPTIONS...] [STRING...]

DESCRIPTION#

systemd-escape may be used to escape strings for inclusion in systemd unit names. The command may be used to escape and to undo escaping of strings.

The command takes any number of strings on the command line, and will process them individually, one after another. It will output them separated by spaces to stdout.

By default, this command will escape the strings passed, unless --unescape is passed which results in the inverse operation being applied. If --mangle is given, a special mode of escaping is applied instead, which assumes the string is already escaped but will escape everything that appears obviously non-escaped.

For details on the escaping and unescaping algorithms see the relevant section in systemd.unit(5).

OPTIONS#

The following options are understood:

--suffix=

Added in version 216.

--template=

Added in version 216.

--path, -p

This is particularly useful for generating strings suitable for unescaping with the "%f" specifier in unit files, see systemd.unit(5).

Added in version 216.

--unescape, -u

Added in version 216.

--mangle, -m

Added in version 216.

--instance

Added in version 240.

-h, --help

--version

EXAMPLES#

To escape a single string:

$ systemd-escape 'Hallöchen, Meister'
Hall\xc3\xb6chen\x2c\x20Meister

To undo escaping on a single string:

$ systemd-escape -u 'Hall\xc3\xb6chen\x2c\x20Meister'
Hallöchen, Meister

To generate the mount unit for a path:

$ systemd-escape -p --suffix=mount "/tmp//waldi/foobar/"
tmp-waldi-foobar.mount

To generate instance names of three strings:

$ systemd-escape [email protected] 'My Container 1' 'containerb' 'container/III'
systemd-nspawn@My\x20Container\x201.service [email protected] [email protected]

To extract the instance part of an instantiated unit:

$ systemd-escape -u --instance 'systemd-nspawn@My\x20Container\x201.service'
My Container 1

To extract the instance part of an instance of a particular template:

$ systemd-escape -u [email protected] 'systemd-nspawn@My\x20Container\x201.service'
My Container 1

EXIT STATUS#

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

SEE ALSO#

systemd(1), systemd.unit(5), systemctl(1)