How to manage systemd units with systemctl

In this article, we’ll show you how to manage the systemd units using systemctl command.

What’s systemd?

systemd is a system and service manager for modern Linux operating systems, which backwards compatible with SysV and LSB init scripts.

It provides a numerous features such as parallel startup of system services at boot time and on-demand activation of daemons, etc,.

systemd introduces the concept of systemd units, which are located under ‘/usr/lib/systemd/system’ whereas legacy init scripts were located under ‘/etc/rc.d/init.d’.

systemd is the first process that starts after the system boots and holds PID 1.

See the following articles if you would like to learn more about systemd unit file:

systemd unit types

There are different types of unit files that represent system resources and services. Each unit file type comes with their own extensions, below are the commonly used systemd unit types.

Unit files are plain-text files that can be created or modified by a privilege user.

Run the following command to see all unit types:

$ systemctl -t help
Unit TypeFile ExtensionDescription
Service unit.serviceA service on the system, including instructions for starting, restarting, and stopping the service.
Target unit.targetIt replaces sysV init run levels that control system boot.
Device unit.deviceA device file recognized by the kernel.
Mount unit.mountA file system mount point.
Socket unit.socketA network socket associated with a service.
Swap unit.swapA swap device or a swap file.
Timer unit.timerA systemd timer.

What’s systemctl?

The systemctl command is the primary tool to manage or control systemd units. It combines the functionality of SysVinit’s service and chkconfig commands into a single command.

It comes with a long list of options for different functionality, the most commonly used options are starting, stopping, restarting, masking, or reloading a daemon.

Listing all Units

To list all loaded units regardless of their state, run the following command on your terminal. It lists all units, including service, target, mount, socket, etc,.

$ systemctl list-units --all

Listing Services

To list all currently loaded service units, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type service
or
$ systemctl list-units --type=service

Details about the header of above output:

  • UNIT = The name of the service unit
  • LOAD = Reflects whether the unit file has been loaded.
  • ACTIVE = The high-level unit file activation state.
  • SUB = The low-level unit file activation state.
  • DESCRIPTION = Short description of the unit file.

By default, the ‘systemctl list-units’ command displays only active units. If you want to list all loaded units regardless of their state, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type service --all

  UNIT                                                LOAD      ACTIVE   SUB     DESCRIPTION                                                                  
  accounts-daemon.service                             loaded    active   running Accounts Service                                                             
● acpid.service                                       not-found inactive dead    acpid.service                                                                
  after-local.service                                 loaded    inactive dead    /etc/init.d/after.local Compatibility                                        
  alsa-restore.service                                loaded    active   exited  Save/Restore Sound Card State                                                
  alsa-state.service                                  loaded    inactive dead    Manage Sound Card State (restore and store)                                  
● amavis.service                                      not-found inactive dead    amavis.service                                                               
  apparmor.service                                    loaded    active   exited  Load AppArmor profiles                                                       
  appstream-sync-cache.service                        loaded    inactive dead    Synchronize AppStream metadata from repositories into AS-cache               
  auditd.service                                      loaded    active   running Security Auditing Service                                                    
  avahi-daemon.service                                loaded    active   running Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack                                                      
  backup-rpmdb.service                                loaded    inactive dead    Backup RPM database                                                          
  backup-sysconfig.service                            loaded    inactive dead    Backup /etc/sysconfig directory                                              
  bluetooth.service                                   loaded    active   running Bluetooth service                                                            
  btrfs-balance.service                               loaded    inactive dead    Balance block groups on a btrfs filesystem                                   
  btrfs-scrub.service                                 loaded    inactive dead    Scrub btrfs filesystem, verify block checksums                               
  btrfs-trim.service                                  loaded    inactive dead    Discard unused blocks on a mounted filesystem                                
  btrfsmaintenance-refresh.service                    loaded    inactive dead    Update cron periods from /etc/sysconfig/btrfsmaintenance                     
  ca-certificates.service                             loaded    inactive dead    Update system wide CA certificates                                           
  check-battery.service                               loaded    inactive dead    Check if mainboard battery is Ok                                             
  colord.service                                      loaded    active   running Manage, Install and Generate Color Profiles                                  
  cron.service                                        loaded    active   running Command Scheduler                                                            
  cups.service                                        loaded    active   running CUPS Scheduler                                                               

To list only the running services, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running

To list all service units installed in the file system, not only the loaded, run:

$ sudo systemctl list-unit-files --type=service

To list only enabled service units, run:

$ systemctl list-unit-files --type=service --state=enabled

To display the unit file contents that systemd has loaded into memory, run:

$ systemctl cat sshd.service

# /etc/systemd/system/sshd.service
[Unit]
Description=OpenSSH Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=notify
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/ssh
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd-gen-keys-start
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd -t $SSHD_OPTS
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/sshd -D $SSHD_OPTS
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
KillMode=process
Restart=on-failure
RestartPreventExitStatus=255
TasksMax=infinity

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

To view a list of properties that are set for the specified unit, run:

$ systemctl show sshd.service

Type=notify
Restart=on-failure
NotifyAccess=main
RestartUSec=100ms
TimeoutStartUSec=1min 30s
TimeoutStopUSec=1min 30s
RuntimeMaxUSec=infinity
WatchdogUSec=0
WatchdogTimestamp=Thu 2021-06-03 06:28:04 IST
WatchdogTimestampMonotonic=9458330
FailureAction=none
PermissionsStartOnly=no
RootDirectoryStartOnly=no
RemainAfterExit=no
GuessMainPID=yes
MainPID=1365
...

To display a single property, use the ‘-p’ flag with the property name.

$ systemctl show sshd.service -p ControlGroup

ControlGroup=/system.slice/sshd.service

To recursively show only dependencies of target units, run: For instance, to show dependencies of ssh service.

$ systemctl list-dependencies sshd.service

sshd.service
● ├─system.slice
● └─sysinit.target
●   ├─detect-part-label-duplicates.service
●   ├─dev-hugepages.mount
●   ├─dev-mqueue.mount
●   ├─dracut-shutdown.service
●   ├─haveged.service
●   ├─kmod-static-nodes.service
●   ├─lvm2-lvmpolld.socket
●   ├─lvm2-monitor.service
●   ├─plymouth-read-write.service
●   ├─plymouth-start.service

Listing Sockets

To list socket units currently in memory, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type=socket
or
$ systemctl list-sockets

UNIT                            LOAD   ACTIVE SUB       DESCRIPTION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
avahi-daemon.socket             loaded active running   Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack Activation Socket        
cups.socket                     loaded active running   CUPS Scheduler                                   
dbus.socket                     loaded active running   D-Bus System Message Bus Socket                  
dm-event.socket                 loaded active listening Device-mapper event daemon FIFOs                 
iscsid.socket                   loaded active listening Open-iSCSI iscsid Socket                         
lvm2-lvmpolld.socket            loaded active listening LVM2 poll daemon socket                          
pcscd.socket                    loaded active listening PC/SC Smart Card Daemon Activation Socket        
syslog.socket                   loaded active running   Syslog Socket                                    
systemd-initctl.socket          loaded active listening /dev/initctl Compatibility Named Pipe            
systemd-journald-dev-log.socket loaded active running   Journal Socket (/dev/log)                        
systemd-journald.socket         loaded active running   Journal Socket                                   
systemd-rfkill.socket           loaded active listening Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status /dev/rfkill Watch
systemd-udevd-control.socket    loaded active running   udev Control Socket                              
systemd-udevd-kernel.socket     loaded active running   udev Kernel Socket
                               
LOAD   = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
SUB    = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.

14 loaded units listed. Pass --all to see loaded but inactive units, too.
To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'.

Listing Mounts

To list mount units currently loaded, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type=mount

UNIT                           LOAD   ACTIVE SUB     DESCRIPTION
----------------------------------------------------------------------------                                  
-.mount                        loaded active mounted Root Mount                                   
\x2esnapshots.mount            loaded active mounted /.snapshots                                  
boot-grub2-i386\x2dpc.mount    loaded active mounted /boot/grub2/i386-pc                          
boot-grub2-x86_64\x2defi.mount loaded active mounted /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi                       
dev-hugepages.mount            loaded active mounted Huge Pages File System                       
dev-mqueue.mount               loaded active mounted POSIX Message Queue File System              
home.mount                     loaded active mounted /home                                        
opt.mount                      loaded active mounted /opt                                         
proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount  loaded active mounted Arbitrary Executable File Formats File System
root.mount                     loaded active mounted /root                                        
run-media-linuxgeek-DATA.mount loaded active mounted /run/media/linuxgeek/DATA                    
run-user-1000-gvfs.mount       loaded active mounted /run/user/1000/gvfs                          
run-user-1000.mount            loaded active mounted /run/user/1000                               
srv.mount                      loaded active mounted /srv                                         
sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount  loaded active mounted FUSE Control File System                     
sys-kernel-debug-tracing.mount loaded active mounted /sys/kernel/debug/tracing                    
sys-kernel-debug.mount         loaded active mounted Kernel Debug File System                     
tmp.mount                      loaded active mounted /tmp                                         
usr-local.mount                loaded active mounted /usr/local                                   
var.mount                      loaded active mounted /var                                         

LOAD   = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
SUB    = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.

20 loaded units listed. Pass --all to see loaded but inactive units, too.
To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'.

Listing Timers

To list timer units currently loaded, run:

$ systemctl list-timers

NEXT                         LEFT                LAST                         PASSED       UNIT                         ACTIVATES
Fri 2021-06-04 17:00:00 IST  8min left           Fri 2021-06-04 16:00:03 IST  51min ago    snapper-timeline.timer       snapper-timeline.service
Fri 2021-06-04 21:38:01 IST  4h 46min left       Thu 2021-06-03 12:10:13 IST  1 day 4h ago snapper-cleanup.timer        snapper-cleanup.service
Fri 2021-06-04 21:42:54 IST  4h 51min left       Thu 2021-06-03 12:15:06 IST  1 day 4h ago systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
Sat 2021-06-05 00:00:00 IST  7h left             Fri 2021-06-04 00:00:23 IST  16h ago      logrotate.timer              logrotate.service
Sat 2021-06-05 00:00:00 IST  7h left             Fri 2021-06-04 00:00:23 IST  16h ago      mandb.timer                  mandb.service
Sat 2021-06-05 00:43:15 IST  7h left             Fri 2021-06-04 01:52:04 IST  14h ago      check-battery.timer          check-battery.service
Sat 2021-06-05 00:48:48 IST  7h left             Fri 2021-06-04 00:05:23 IST  16h ago      backup-rpmdb.timer           backup-rpmdb.service
Sat 2021-06-05 01:41:30 IST  8h left             Fri 2021-06-04 00:57:23 IST  15h ago      backup-sysconfig.timer       backup-sysconfig.service
Mon 2021-06-07 00:00:00 IST  2 days left         Tue 2021-06-01 03:16:20 IST  3 days ago   btrfs-balance.timer          btrfs-balance.service
Mon 2021-06-07 00:00:00 IST  2 days left         Mon 2021-05-31 12:08:22 IST  4 days ago   fstrim.timer                 fstrim.service
Thu 2021-07-01 00:00:00 IST  3 weeks 5 days left Tue 2021-06-01 03:16:20 IST  3 days ago   btrfs-scrub.timer            btrfs-scrub.service

11 timers listed.
Pass --all to see loaded but inactive timers, too.

Service Management

Service is also one of the unit type in the systemd system, which have unit files with a suffix of ‘.service’. Six types of common actions can be performed against a service, which will be divided into two major types.

  • Boot-time actions: These are enable and disable, which are used to control a service at boot time.
  • Run-time actions: These are start, stop, restart, and reload, which are used to control a service on-demand.

Start a service

To start a systemd service, run: The ‘UNIT_NAME’ could be any application name like sshd, httpd, mariadb, etc,.

$ sudo systemctl start UNIT_NAME.service
or
$ sudo systemctl start UNIT_NAME

Stop a service

To stop a currently running service, execute: For instance, to stop Apache httpd service.

$ sudo systemctl stop httpd.service

Restart and reload a service

To restart a running service, run:

$ sudo systemctl restart UNIT_NAME.service

You may need to reload a service while making changes to the configuration file, which will bring up new parameters that you added. To do so, run:

$ sudo systemctl reload UNIT_NAME.service

Enabling and disabling a service at boot

To start services automatically at boot, run: This will create a symlink from either ‘/usr/lib/systemd/system/UNIT_NAME.service’ or ‘/etc/systemd/system/UNIT_NAME.service’ to the ‘/etc/systemd/system/SOME_TARGET.target.wants/UNIT_NAME.service’.

$ sudo systemctl enable UNIT_NAME.service

You can double check that the service is enabled by executing the following command.

$ systemctl is-enabled UNIT_NAME.service

To disable the service at boot, run: This will remove the symlink that has created earlier for the service unit.

$ sudo systemctl disable UNIT_NAME.service

Checking the status of service

To check the status of a service, run: This will give you more detailed information about the service unit.

$ systemctl status UNIT_NAME.service

# systemctl status httpd
● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service.d
           └─limit_nofile.conf, respawn.conf
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2021-05-28 03:23:54 IST; 1 weeks 3 days ago
     Docs: man:httpd(8)
           man:apachectl(8)
  Process: 19226 ExecReload=/usr/sbin/httpd $OPTIONS -k graceful (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 25933 (httpd)
   Status: "Total requests: 0; Current requests/sec: 0; Current traffic:   0 B/sec"
    Tasks: 187
   Memory: 479.6M
   CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
           ├─12161 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19283 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19284 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19286 Passenger watchdog
           ├─19289 Passenger core
           ├─19310 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19333 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19339 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─19459 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           ├─20564 /opt/plesk/php/5.6/bin/php-cgi -c /var/www/vhosts/system/thilaexports.com/etc/php.ini
           ├─21821 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
           └─25933 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
Jun 06 12:19:11 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloading The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 12:19:12 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloaded The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:18:06 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloading The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:18:07 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloaded The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:18:26 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloading The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:18:27 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloaded The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:19:09 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloading The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 06 13:19:10 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloaded The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 07 04:10:25 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloading The Apache HTTP Server.
Jun 07 04:10:26 ns1.nowdigitaleasy.com systemd[1]: Reloaded The Apache HTTP Server.

To check if a service unit is currently active (running) by executing the below command.

$ systemctl is-active UNIT_NAME.service

Masking and Unmasking Units

To prevent any service unit from being started manually or by another service then you need to mask it. If you have masked any service unit, it will completely disable the service and will not start service until it is unmaksed.

$ sudo systemctl mask UNIT_NAME.service

If you try to start the masked service, you will see the following message:

$ sudo systemctl start UNIT_NAME.service
Failed to start UNIT_NAME.service: Unit UNIT_NAME.service is masked.

To unmask a unit, run:

$ sudo systemctl unmask UNIT_NAME.service

Creating and modifying systemd unit files

In this section, we will show you how to create and mofiy systemd unit files. There are three main directories where unit files are stored on the system.

  • /usr/lib/systemd/system/ – systemd unit files dropped when the package has installed.
  • /run/systemd/system/ – systemd unit files created at run time.
  • /etc/systemd/system/ – systemd unit files created by ‘systemctl enable’ command as well as unit files added for extending a service.

Refer the following articles for creating and modifying systemd unit files:

systemd Targets

Targets are specialized unit files that determine the state of a Linux system. systemd uses targets to group together other units through a chain of dependencies, which serves a purpose such as runlevels.

Each target is named instead of a number and unit files can be linked to one target and multiple targets can be active simultaneously.

Listing Targets

To view a list of the available targets on your system, run:

$ systemctl list-units --type=target
or
$ systemctl list-unit-files --type=target

UNIT                   LOAD   ACTIVE SUB    DESCRIPTION  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------                
basic.target           loaded active active Basic System                 
bluetooth.target       loaded active active Bluetooth                    
cryptsetup.target      loaded active active Local Encrypted Volumes      
getty.target           loaded active active Login Prompts                
graphical.target       loaded active active Graphical Interface          
local-fs-pre.target    loaded active active Local File Systems (Pre)     
local-fs.target        loaded active active Local File Systems           
multi-user.target      loaded active active Multi-User System            
network-online.target  loaded active active Network is Online            
network-pre.target     loaded active active Network (Pre)                
network.target         loaded active active Network                      
nss-lookup.target      loaded active active Host and Network Name Lookups
nss-user-lookup.target loaded active active User and Group Name Lookups  
paths.target           loaded active active Paths                        
remote-fs-pre.target   loaded active active Remote File Systems (Pre)    
remote-fs.target       loaded active active Remote File Systems          
slices.target          loaded active active Slices                       
sockets.target         loaded active active Sockets                      
sound.target           loaded active active Sound Card                   
swap.target            loaded active active Swap                         
sysinit.target         loaded active active System Initialization        
time-sync.target       loaded active active System Time Synchronized     
timers.target          loaded active active Timers                       

LOAD   = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
SUB    = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.

23 loaded units listed. Pass --all to see loaded but inactive units, too.
To show all installed unit files use 'systemctl list-unit-files'.

Displaying the default target

By default, the systemd process uses the default target when booting the system. To view the default target on your system, run:

$ systemctl get-default
multi-user.target

To set a different target as a default target, run: For instance, to set a ‘graphical.target’, run:

$ sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

Changing the current active target

To change the current active target immediately, run: For example, if you want to switch from the current graphical target (GUI) to the multi-user target (CLI – command line interface), run:

$ sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target

Booting the system with Single User mode

If your system unable to complete a regular booting process due to an issue, you can boot the system into rescue (single-user) mode for further troubleshooting.

In rescue mode, the system tries to mount all local file systems and start only few important system services, but it does not activate network interfaces or allow more users to log into the system at the same time.

$ sudo systemctl rescue

Booting the system with Emergency mode

Similarly you can boot the system with emergency mode to repair your system. This provides a very minimal environment for the user, which can be used when the system cannot enter rescue mode.

In emergency mode, the system mounts the root file system for read-only purposes and does not attempt to load any other local file systems. Also, it does not activate network interfaces and only starts some essential services.

$ sudo systemctl emergency

Power management

systemctl also allows users to halt, shutdown and reboot a system.

To halt a system, run:

$ sudo systemctl halt

To shutdown a system, run:

$ sudo systemctl poweroff

To reboot a system, run:

$ sudo systemctl reboot

Conclusion

In this guide, we have shown you how to use systemctl command in Linux with several examples to manage or control systemd units.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to comment below.

About Magesh Maruthamuthu

Love to play with all Linux distribution

View all posts by Magesh Maruthamuthu

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