sanity check: why am I unable to manage my own directory with systemd-tmpfiles?

[Brian Reichert <reichert@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm trying to manage a new tempdir with systemd-tmpfiles, but I
can't find a set of directives that do what I expect.

I'm obviously missing something, as there's plenty of documentation
out there, but I can't achieve the desired effect.

My environment is SLES12SP6, running systemd 228.

Some more specifics:

I have a new user and group, with a tmp directory with the sticky
bit set:

  10-153-68-12:~ # groupadd foobar
  10-153-68-12:~ # useradd -g foobar -m -d /home/foobar foobar
  
  10-153-68-12:~ # mkdir -p /home/foobar/tmp
  10-153-68-12:~ # chmod 1700 /home/foobar/tmp
  10-153-68-12:~ # ls -ld --full-time /home/foobar/tmp
  drwx-----T 2 foobar foobar 4096 2025-01-30 17:47:52.398749507 -0500
  /home/foobar/tmp

I then create 45 days of historical files in that temp directory:

  10-153-68-12:~ # start=$( date +%Y-%m-%d ); count=45; while (( --count >= 0)); do curr=$(date +%Y-%m-%d --date "${start} -${count} day");  touch -d
"${curr}" "/home/foobar/tmp/example.${curr}"; done
  10-153-68-12:~ # chown -R foobar:foobar /home/foobar

Just to show I have 45 old files:

  10-153-68-12:~ # ls -ldtr --full-time /home/foobar/tmp/example.* | head -1
  -rw-r--r-- 1 foobar foobar 0 2024-12-16 00:00:00.000000000 -0500
  /home/foobar/tmp/example.2024-12-16
  
  10-153-68-12:~ # ls -ldtr --full-time /home/foobar/tmp/example.* | wc -l
  45

Now, let's describe a config file for systemd-tmpfiles, with the
goal of scrubbing files older than 10 days:

  10-153-68-12:~ # echo 'q /home/foobar/tmp 1700 foobar foobar 10d' >
  /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/foobar.conf

My expectation is that this would perform that cleanup pass. Pardon
the noise, SLES's packaging is sloppy:

  10-153-68-12:~ # systemd-tmpfiles --remove --clean
  [/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/dirmngr.conf:1] Line references path below legacy
  directory /var/run/, updating /var/run/dirmngr → /run/dirmngr;
  please update the tmpfiles.d/ drop-in file accordingly.
  [/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/screen.conf:2] Line references path below legacy
  directory /var/run/, updating /var/run/screens → /run/screens;
  please update the tmpfiles.d/ drop-in file accordingly.
  [/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/screen.conf:3] Line references path below legacy
  directory /var/run/, updating /var/run/uscreens → /run/uscreens;
  please update the tmpfiles.d/ drop-in file accordingly.

But, no files have been clean out:

  10-153-68-12:~ # ls -ldtr --full-time /home/foobar/tmp/example.* | wc -l
  45

So, what did I do wrong?

I'm happy for any guidance anyone can provide.

-- 
Brian Reichert				<reichert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
BSD admin/developer at large