DBUS-UPDATE-ACTIVA(1) User Commands DBUS-UPDATE-ACTIVA(1)

NAME

dbus-update-activation-environment - update environment used for
D-Bus session services

SYNOPSIS

dbus-update-activation-environment [--systemd] [--verbose] --all |
VAR... | VAR=VAL...

DESCRIPTION

dbus-update-activation-environment updates the list of environment
variables used by dbus-daemon --session when it activates session
services without using systemd.

With the --systemd option, if an instance of systemd --user is
available on D-Bus, it also updates the list of environment variables
used by systemd --user when it activates user services, including
D-Bus session services for which dbus-daemon has been configured to
delegate activation to systemd. This is very similar to the
import-environment command provided by systemctl(1)).

Variables that are special to dbus-daemon or systemd may be set, but
their values will be overridden when a service is started. For
instance, it is not useful to add DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS to
dbus-daemon's activation environment, although it might still be
useful to add it to systemd's activation environment.

OPTIONS

--all
Set all environment variables present in the environment used by
dbus-update-activation-environment.

--systemd
Set environment variables for systemd user services as well as
for traditional D-Bus session services.

--verbose
Output messages to standard error explaining what
dbus-update-activation-environment is doing.

VAR
If VAR is present in the environment of
dbus-update-activation-environment, set it to the same value for
D-Bus services. Its value must be UTF-8 (if not, it is skipped
with a warning). If VAR is not present in the environment, this
argument is silently ignored.

VAR=VAL
Set VAR to VAL, which must be UTF-8.

EXAMPLES

dbus-update-activation-environment is primarily designed to be used
in Linux distributions' X11 session startup scripts, in conjunction
with the "user bus" design.

To propagate DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY to dbus-daemon and, if present,
systemd, and propagate DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS to systemd:

dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd \
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS DISPLAY XAUTHORITY


To propagate all environment variables except XDG_SEAT,
XDG_SESSION_ID and XDG_VTNR to dbus-daemon (and, if present, systemd)
for compatibility with legacy X11 session startup scripts:

# in a subshell so the variables remain set in the
# parent script
(
unset XDG_SEAT
unset XDG_SESSION_ID
unset XDG_VTNR

dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd --all
)

EXIT STATUS

dbus-update-activation-environment exits with status 0 on success,
EX_USAGE (64) on invalid command-line options, EX_OSERR (71) if
unable to connect to the session bus, or EX_UNAVAILABLE (69) if
unable to set the environment variables. Other nonzero exit codes
might be added in future versions.

ENVIRONMENT

DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS, XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and/or DISPLAY are used to
find the address of the session bus.

LIMITATIONS

dbus-daemon does not provide a way to unset environment variables
after they have been set (although systemd does), so
dbus-update-activation-environment does not offer this functionality
either.

POSIX does not specify the encoding of non-ASCII environment variable
names or values and allows them to contain any non-zero byte, but
neither dbus-daemon nor systemd supports environment variables with
non-UTF-8 names or values. Accordingly,
dbus-update-activation-environment assumes that any name or value
that appears to be valid UTF-8 is intended to be UTF-8, and ignores
other names or values with a warning.

BUGS

Please send bug reports to the D-Bus bug tracker or mailing list. See
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/.

SEE ALSO

dbus-daemon(1), systemd(1), the import-environment command of
systemctl(1)

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2015 Collabora Ltd.

This man page is distributed under the same terms as
dbus-update-activation-environment (MIT/X11). There is NO WARRANTY,
to the extent permitted by law.


D-Bus 1.12.28 01/10/2025 DBUS-UPDATE-ACTIVA(1)