Exit Codes

Here are some common exit codes that may be returned by a program or script.

Exit Code	Description
0	Successful Termination
1	General Error, typical catch-all value
2	Misuse of shell builtins, keywords, or functions
6	No such device or address. Eg. curl on an invalid host.
64-78	BSD exit codes. See section below.
124	Command timed out (coreutils/timeout)
125	Command failure (coreutils/timeout)
126	Command found, but cannot be executed
127	Command not found. Possible path or typo issue.
128	Invalid argument to exit. Eg. exit 1.1 would result in 128.
128+n	Fatal error signal n, where n is the signal number as defined in: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/signal.7.html
130	Program Interrupted (SIGINT, 128+2), such as termination from Ctrl-C
134	Program Abort (SIGABRT, 128+6)
136	Erroneous Arithmetic Operation (SIGFPE, 128+8), such as division by zero
137	Killed. (SIGKILL, 128+9)
139	Segmentation Fault (SIGSEGV, 11)
160+n	The largest signal value is 31. As a result, all values after 128+31 can be interpreted as negative return codes by treating the value as a 1 byte integer. For example, 255 = -1, 254 = -2, 240 = -16, 225 = -31, and so forth A simple way to 'convert' it is to just subtract the value from 256.
200-243	Are you working with systemd? See section below.
255	Maximum exit code value. Obtained when the program calls exit -1.
256+	All higher exit codes should be reduced down to the 0-255 range. More information below. You typically either modulo the code by 256 or take the high 8-bit values. Eg. Code 3809 % 256 results in 225, or code 32512 & 0xff00 >> 8 results in 127.

Parsing high exit code values

At least on Linux (and whatever is reported by Slurm), the exit code that's stored is an 2 byte value which can be parsed as:

Bits	Description
high 8 bits	The actual exit code
7 bit	if a core dump was produced
lower 7 bits	signal number that killed the process

For example, the exit code 32512 has an exit code of 127 (command not found).

Systemd exit codes

See the systemd documentation: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.exec.html

Exit Code	Symbolic Name	Description
200	EXIT_CHDIR	Changing to the requested working directory failed. Issue with WorkingDirectory=
201	EXIT_NICE	Failed to set up process scheduling priority (nice level). Issue with Nice=
202	EXIT_FDS	Failed to close unwanted file descriptors, or to adjust passed file descriptors.
203	EXIT_EXEC	The actual process execution failed (specifically, the execve(2) system call). Most likely this is caused by a missing or non-accessible executable file.
204	EXIT_MEMORY	Failed to perform an action due to memory shortage.
205	EXIT_LIMITS	Failed to adjust resource limits. Issue with LimitCPU= and related settings
206	EXIT_OOM_ADJUST	Failed to adjust the OOM setting. Issue with OOMScoreAdjust=
207	EXIT_SIGNAL_MASK	Failed to set process signal mask.
208	EXIT_STDIN	Failed to set up standard input. Issue with StandardInput=
209	EXIT_STDOUT	Failed to set up standard output. Issue with StandardOutput=
210	EXIT_CHROOT	Failed to change root directory (chroot(2)). Issue with RootDirectory=/RootImage=
211	EXIT_IOPRIO	Failed to set up IO scheduling priority. Issue with IOSchedulingClass=/IOSchedulingPriority=
212	EXIT_TIMERSLACK	Failed to set up timer slack. Issue with TimerSlackNSec=
213	EXIT_SECUREBITS	Failed to set process secure bits. Issue with SecureBits=
214	EXIT_SETSCHEDULER	Failed to set up CPU scheduling. Issue with CPUSchedulingPolicy=/CPUSchedulingPriority=
215	EXIT_CPUAFFINITY	Failed to set up CPU affinity. Issue with CPUAffinity=
216	EXIT_GROUP	Failed to determine or change group credentials. Issue with Group=/SupplementaryGroups=
217	EXIT_USER	Failed to determine or change user credentials, or to set up user namespacing. Issue with User=/PrivateUsers=
218	EXIT_CAPABILITIES	Failed to drop capabilities, or apply ambient capabilities. Issue with CapabilityBoundingSet=/AmbientCapabilities=
219	EXIT_CGROUP	Setting up the service control group failed.
220	EXIT_SETSID	Failed to create new process session.
221	EXIT_CONFIRM	Execution has been cancelled by the user. See the systemd.confirm_spawn= kernel command line setting on kernel-command-line(7) for details.
222	EXIT_STDERR	Failed to set up standard error output. Issue with StandardError=
224	EXIT_PAM	Failed to set up PAM session. Issue with PAMName=
225	EXIT_NETWORK	Failed to set up network namespacing. Issue with PrivateNetwork=
226	EXIT_NAMESPACE	Failed to set up mount, UTS, or IPC namespacing. See ReadOnlyPaths=, ProtectHostname=, PrivateIPC=, and related settings.
227	EXIT_NO_NEW_PRIVILEGES	Failed to disable new privileges. Issue with NoNewPrivileges=yes
228	EXIT_SECCOMP	Failed to apply system call filters. See SystemCallFilter= and related settings
229	EXIT_SELINUX_CONTEXT	Determining or changing SELinux context failed. Issue with SELinuxContext=
230	EXIT_PERSONALITY	Failed to set up an execution domain (personality). Issue with Personality=
231	EXIT_APPARMOR_PROFILE	Failed to prepare changing AppArmor profile. Issue with AppArmorProfile=
232	EXIT_ADDRESS_FAMILIES	Failed to restrict address families. Issue with RestrictAddressFamilies=
233	EXIT_RUNTIME_DIRECTORY	Setting up runtime directory failed. See RuntimeDirectory= and related settings
235	EXIT_CHOWN	Failed to adjust socket ownership. Used for socket units only.
236	EXIT_SMACK_PROCESS_LABEL	Failed to set SMACK label. Issue with SmackProcessLabel=
237	EXIT_KEYRING	Failed to set up kernel keyring.
238	EXIT_STATE_DIRECTORY	Failed to set up unit's state directory. Issue with StateDirectory=
239	EXIT_CACHE_DIRECTORY	Failed to set up unit's cache directory. Issue with CacheDirectory=
240	EXIT_LOGS_DIRECTORY	Failed to set up unit's logging directory. Issue with LogsDirectory=
241	EXIT_CONFIGURATION_DIRECTORY	Failed to set up unit's configuration directory. Issue with ConfigurationDirectory=
242	EXIT_NUMA_POLICY	Failed to set up unit's NUMA memory policy. Issue with NUMAPolicy= and NUMAMask=
243	EXIT_CREDENTIALS	Failed to set up unit's credentials. Issue with LoadCredential= and SetCredential=

BSD exit codes

Exit Code	Symbolic Name	Description
64	EX_USAGE	Command line usage error
65	EX_DATAERR	Data format error
66	EX_NOINPUT	Cannot open input
67	EX_NOUSER	Addressee unknown
68	EX_NOHOST	Host name unknown
69	EX_UNAVAILABLE	Service unavailable
70	EX_SOFTWARE	internal software error
71	EX_OSERR	System error (e.g., can't fork)
72	EX_OSFILE	Critical OS file missing
73	EX_CANTCREAT	Can't create (user) output file
74	EX_IOERR	Input/output error
75	EX_TEMPFAIL	Temporary failure; user is invited to retry
76	EX_PROTOCOL	Remote error in protocol
77	EX_NOPERM	Permission denied
78	EX_CONFIG	Configuration error

See Also

• https://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/exitcodes.html
• Coreutils / Timeout: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/timeout-invocation.html
• errno - error numbers used in Linux (errno -ls)