Ttgjyuk

After last update there is become a problem: systemd-tmpfiles not starts (so there is no temp dirs and some services can't be started).

root@myserver:/# journalctl -b 0 -u systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
-- Logs begin at Ср 2018-11-21 01:00:51 MSK, end at Ср 2018-11-21 11:45:01 MSK. --
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd[1]: Starting Create Volatile Files and Directories...
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/log, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/lib, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/sendsigs.omit.d, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/lock/subsys, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/lock/lvm, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/lvm, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/cache, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/cache/man, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/php, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/rpcbind, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/rpcbind/rpcbind.xdr, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/rpcbind/portmap.xdr, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/samba, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/run/screen, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/run/sshd, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/run/sudo, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/run/sudo/ts, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/nologin, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/user, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/utmp, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/ask-password, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/seats, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/sessions, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/users, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/machines, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/shutdown, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/netif, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/netif/links, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/systemd/netif/leases, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /run/log, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/lib/systemd, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/lib/systemd/coredump, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/log/wtmp, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd-tmpfiles[1040]: Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/log/btmp, refusing.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd[1]: Failed to start Create Volatile Files and Directories.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service: Unit entered failed state.
ноя 21 01:01:04 myserver systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

I was trying to run separate config files

root@myserver:/# systemd-tmpfiles --create /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/sshd.conf
Unsafe symlinks encountered in /var/run/sshd, refusing.

/var/run/sshd is empty. There is no symlinks at all.

I've no idea what its means and how to fix it. Any advice are welcome.

root@myserver:/# uname -a
Linux myserver 4.4.0-139-generic #165-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 24 10:58:50 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I had exactly the same problem today on my workstation - ubuntu 18.04.1.
Finally (searching systemd source code) I have figured, that somehow
my root folder = / ownership had been changed to me - the only user.
Simple chown root.root / solved the problem :)
... after some 2 hours of searching.

It seems it is a bug:
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service fails on btrfs

Encountered this problem as well.

To add to the answer above, you need to make sure that the whole path belongs to root, not just /. Somehow my /var folder got the owner of mysql (good job, mysql), and sshd was trying to create /var/run/sshd, which failed.

I was reluctant to the answer from @ivop, but it turned out to solve my problem.

I'm using Arch, and found that my /run/mysqld and /run/httpd directories were not created at boot (thus I had to crank start apache and mariaDB), and that whenever an update took place, I always received the error: "could not create temporary files".

What I don't get is: why, when I did "ls -l /", every file had root ownership (root root). And, after trying @ivop's answer, everything kinda looks the same, but now works.

Am I missing something?
Is there another way to check files ownerships?

Thanks anyway! I'll be vigilant if something stops working from here.