Sstrhsrtj

Recently I upgraded to debian jessie (current testing) and after that avg boot time has increased to 3-4 minutes.

Between grub and gdm start, I get this message for 2-3 minutes.

A job is running for creating volatile and temporary files and directories

Here is output of systemd-analyze blame

[smit: ~] $ systemd-analyze blame 

    3min 14.096s systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service

          8.657s NetworkManager.service

          8.244s apache2.service

          7.048s ModemManager.service

          6.328s networking.service

          6.004s accounts-daemon.service

          5.288s binfmt-support.service

          4.557s systemd-logind.service

          4.541s alsa-restore.service

          4.541s console-kit-log-system-start.service

          4.530s lm-sensors.service

          4.521s pppd-dns.service

          4.520s redis-server.service

          4.519s hostapd.service

          4.519s minissdpd.service

          4.519s timidity.service

          4.519s nvidia-kernel.service

          4.518s rc-local.service

          4.437s bluetooth.service

          4.408s avahi-daemon.service

          2.243s systemd-fsck-root.service

          1.437s exim4.service

          1.415s keyboard-setup.service

Once system is started, systemctl doesn't report any error.

[smit: ~] $ sudo systemctl status systemd-tmpfiles-setup

● systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service - Create Volatile Files and Directories

   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service; static)

   Active: active (exited) since Fri 2014-10-17 01:19:09 IST; 1h 41min ago

     Docs: man:tmpfiles.d(5)

           man:systemd-tmpfiles(8)

  Process: 230 ExecStart=/bin/systemd-tmpfiles --create --remove --boot --exclude-prefix=/dev (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

 Main PID: 230 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

   CGroup: /system.slice/systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service

Why is systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service starting slow? Where can I get detailed logs of systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service?

When systemd start a system, one of the first service units launched is systemd-tmpfiles-setup. This service runs the command:

# systemd-tmpfiles --create --remove 

This command reads configuration files from (less relevant first):

• 
  /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/*.conf - these files are provided by the relevant
  RPM package and shouldn't be edited by system admin.


• 
  /run/tmpfiles.d/*.conf - these files are normally used by daemons to
  manage their own runtime temporary files


• 
  /etc/tmpfiles.d/*.conf -
  these files are meant for sysadmis to configure custom temporary
  locations, and to override vendor-provided default

Also there are three places where temporary files are stored:

• 
  /var - Variable data specific to this system that should persist between boots


• 
  /run - Runtime data for processes started since the last boot. This includes process ID files and lock files, among other things.
  The contents of this directory are recreated on reboot.


• 
  /tmp - A world-writale space for temporary files. Files which have not been accessed, changed, or modified for 10 days are deleted
  automatically. Another temporary directory exists in /var/tmp in
  which files that have not been accessed, changed, or modified in more
  than 30 days are deleted automatically.

Summing up:

check tmp configuration files to see why tmp setup take so much time, especially note entries in /run directory because it's recreated at boot time.

This is because chrome beta and cups had issues where they created millions of files in /tmp. If /tmp is a tmpfs for you, then try unmounting it and remounting it. Otherwise, rm -rf /tmp then recreate it.

systemd-tmpfiles starts before the network does, so depending on your configuration, its possible that one of the systemd-tmpfiles config files (located in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d) is trying to create a directory for a user or group that is only available on the system once the network is up, such as a user or group defined in LDAP.

If that's the case, you should look to move systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service to starting after the network.