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systemd-imds-generator(8) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | KERNEL COMMAND LINE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

SYSTEMD-IMDS-GENERATOR(8) systemd-imds-generatorSYSTEMD-IMDS-GENERATOR(8)

NAME         top

       systemd-imds-generator - Generator to automatically enable IMDS on
       supporting environments

SYNOPSIS         top

       /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-imds-generator

DESCRIPTION         top

       systemd-imds-generator is a generator that enables IMDS (Instance
       Metadata Service) functionality at boot on systems that support
       it. Specifically it does three things:

       •   It pulls the systemd-imdsd.socket unit (which activates
           systemd-imdsd@.service(8)) into the initial transaction, which
           provides IMDS access to local applications via Varlink IPC.

       •   It pulls the systemd-imds-early-network.service unit into the
           initial transaction, which generates a suitable
           systemd.network(5) network configuration file that allows
           early-boot network access to the IMDS functionality.

       •   It pulls the systemd-imds-import.service unit into the initial
           transaction, which automatically imports various credentials
           from IMDS into the local system, storing them in
           /run/credstore/.

       By default, whether to pull in these services or not is decided
       based on hwdb(7) information, that detects various IMDS
       environments automatically. However, this logic may be overridden
       via systemd.imds=, see below.

       systemd-imds-generator implements systemd.generator(7).

KERNEL COMMAND LINE         top

       systemd-imds-generator understands the following kernel command
       line parameters:

       systemd.imds=
           Takes a boolean argument or the special value "auto", and may
           be used to enable or disable the IMDS logic. Note that this
           controls only whether the relevant services (as listed above)
           are automatically pulled into the initial transaction, it has
           no effect if some other unit or the user explicitly activates
           the relevant units. If this option is not used (or set to
           "auto") automatic detection of IMDS is used, see above.

           Added in version 261.

       systemd.imds.network=
           Takes one of "off", "locked", "unlocked". Controls whether and
           how to set up networking for IMDS endpoint access. Unless set
           to "off" early boot networking is enabled, ensuring that the
           IMDS endpoint can be reached. If set to "locked" (the default)
           direct access to the IMDS endpoint by regular unprivileged
           processes is disabled via a "prohibit" route, so that any
           access must be done through systemd-imdsd@.service or its
           associated tools. If set to "unlocked" this "prohibit" route
           is not created, and regular unprivileged processes can
           directly contact IMDS.

           Added in version 261.

       systemd.imds.import=
           Takes a boolean argument. If false the
           systemd-imds-import.service (see above) is not pulled into the
           initial transaction, i.e. no credentials are imported from
           IMDS. Defaults to true.

           Added in version 261.

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd(1), systemd-imds(1), systemd-imdsd@.service(8),
       systemd.system-credentials(7)

COLOPHON         top

       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                                 SYSTEMD-IMDS-GENERATOR(8)

Pages that refer to this page: systemd-imds(1),  kernel-command-line(7),  systemd.directives(7),  systemd.index(7),  systemd-imdsd@.service(8)

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