OPTIONS¶
The following options are understood:
-t, --type=
The argument should be a comma-separated list of unit
types such as
service and
socket.
If one of the arguments is a unit type, when listing units, limit
display to certain unit types. Otherwise, units of all types will be
shown.
As a special case, if one of the arguments is help, a list
of allowed values will be printed and the program will exit.
--state=
The argument should be a comma-separated list of unit
LOAD, SUB, or ACTIVE states. When listing units, show only those in the
specified states. Use
--state=failed to show only failed units.
As a special case, if one of the arguments is help, a list
of allowed values will be printed and the program will exit.
-p, --property=
When showing unit/job/manager properties with the
show command, limit display to properties specified in the argument.
The argument should be a comma-separated list of property names, such as
"MainPID". Unless specified, all known properties are shown. If
specified more than once, all properties with the specified names are shown.
Shell completion is implemented for property names.
For the manager itself, systemctl show will show all
available properties. Those properties are documented in
systemd-system.conf(5).
Properties for units vary by unit type, so showing any unit (even
a non-existent one) is a way to list properties pertaining to this type.
Similarly, showing any job will list properties pertaining to all jobs.
Properties for units are documented in systemd.unit(5), and the pages
for individual unit types systemd.service(5),
systemd.socket(5), etc.
-a, --all
When listing units with
list-units, also show
inactive units and units which are following other units. When showing
unit/job/manager properties, show all properties regardless whether they are
set or not.
To list all units installed in the file system, use the
list-unit-files command instead.
When listing units with list-dependencies, recursively show
dependencies of all dependent units (by default only dependencies of target
units are shown).
-r, --recursive
When listing units, also show units of local containers.
Units of local containers will be prefixed with the container name, separated
by a single colon character (":").
--reverse
Show reverse dependencies between units with
list-dependencies, i.e. follow dependencies of type WantedBy=,
RequiredBy=, PartOf=, BoundBy=, instead of Wants=
and similar.
--after
With
list-dependencies, show the units that are
ordered before the specified unit. In other words, recursively list units
following the
After= dependency.
Note that any After= dependency is automatically mirrored
to create a Before= dependency. Temporal dependencies may be
specified explicitly, but are also created implicitly for units which are
WantedBy= targets (see systemd.target(5)), and as a result of
other directives (for example RequiresMountsFor=). Both explicitly
and implicitly introduced dependencies are shown with
list-dependencies.
--before
With list-dependencies, show the units that are
ordered after the specified unit. In other words, recursively list units
following the Before= dependency.
-l, --full
Do not ellipsize unit names, process tree entries,
journal output, or truncate unit descriptions in the output of
status,
list-units,
list-jobs, and
list-timers.
Also, show installation targets in the output of
is-enabled.
--value
When printing properties with show, only print the
value, and skip the property name and "=".
--show-types
When showing sockets, show the type of the socket.
--job-mode=
When queuing a new job, this option controls how to deal
with already queued jobs. It takes one of "fail",
"replace", "replace-irreversibly", "isolate",
"ignore-dependencies", "ignore-requirements" or
"flush". Defaults to "replace", except when the
isolate command is used which implies the "isolate" job mode.
If "fail" is specified and a requested operation
conflicts with a pending job (more specifically: causes an already pending
start job to be reversed into a stop job or vice versa), cause the operation
to fail.
If "replace" (the default) is specified, any conflicting
pending job will be replaced, as necessary.
If "replace-irreversibly" is specified, operate like
"replace", but also mark the new jobs as irreversible. This
prevents future conflicting transactions from replacing these jobs (or even
being enqueued while the irreversible jobs are still pending). Irreversible
jobs can still be cancelled using the cancel command.
"isolate" is only valid for start operations and causes
all other units to be stopped when the specified unit is started. This mode
is always used when the isolate command is used.
"flush" will cause all queued jobs to be canceled when
the new job is enqueued.
If "ignore-dependencies" is specified, then all unit
dependencies are ignored for this new job and the operation is executed
immediately. If passed, no required units of the unit passed will be pulled
in, and no ordering dependencies will be honored. This is mostly a debugging
and rescue tool for the administrator and should not be used by
applications.
"ignore-requirements" is similar to
"ignore-dependencies", but only causes the requirement
dependencies to be ignored, the ordering dependencies will still be
honored.
--fail
Shorthand for
--job-mode=fail.
When used with the kill command, if no units were killed,
the operation results in an error.
-i, --ignore-inhibitors
When system shutdown or a sleep state is requested,
ignore inhibitor locks. Applications can establish inhibitor locks to avoid
that certain important operations (such as CD burning or suchlike) are
interrupted by system shutdown or a sleep state. Any user may take these locks
and privileged users may override these locks. If any locks are taken,
shutdown and sleep state requests will normally fail (regardless of whether
privileged or not) and a list of active locks is printed. However, if
--ignore-inhibitors is specified, the locks are ignored and not
printed, and the operation attempted anyway, possibly requiring additional
privileges.
-q, --quiet
Suppress printing of the results of various commands and
also the hints about truncated log lines. This does not suppress output of
commands for which the printed output is the only result (like show).
Errors are always printed.
--no-block
Do not synchronously wait for the requested operation to
finish. If this is not specified, the job will be verified, enqueued and
systemctl will wait until the unit's start-up is completed. By passing
this argument, it is only verified and enqueued. This option may not be
combined with --wait.
--wait
Synchronously wait for started units to terminate again.
This option may not be combined with --no-block. Note that this will
wait forever if any given unit never terminates (by itself or by getting
stopped explicitly); particularly services which use
"RemainAfterExit=yes".
--user
Talk to the service manager of the calling user, rather
than the service manager of the system.
--system
Talk to the service manager of the system. This is the
implied default.
--no-wall
Do not send wall message before halt, power-off,
reboot.
--global
When used with enable and disable, operate
on the global user configuration directory, thus enabling or disabling a unit
file globally for all future logins of all users.
--no-reload
When used with enable and disable, do not
implicitly reload daemon configuration after executing the changes.
--no-ask-password
When used with start and related commands,
disables asking for passwords. Background services may require input of a
password or passphrase string, for example to unlock system hard disks or
cryptographic certificates. Unless this option is specified and the command is
invoked from a terminal, systemctl will query the user on the terminal
for the necessary secrets. Use this option to switch this behavior off. In
this case, the password must be supplied by some other means (for example
graphical password agents) or the service might fail. This also disables
querying the user for authentication for privileged operations.
--kill-who=
When used with kill, choose which processes to
send a signal to. Must be one of main, control or all to
select whether to kill only the main process, the control process or all
processes of the unit. The main process of the unit is the one that defines
the life-time of it. A control process of a unit is one that is invoked by the
manager to induce state changes of it. For example, all processes started due
to the ExecStartPre=, ExecStop= or ExecReload= settings
of service units are control processes. Note that there is only one control
process per unit at a time, as only one state change is executed at a time.
For services of type Type=forking, the initial process started by the
manager for ExecStart= is a control process, while the process
ultimately forked off by that one is then considered the main process of the
unit (if it can be determined). This is different for service units of other
types, where the process forked off by the manager for ExecStart= is
always the main process itself. A service unit consists of zero or one main
process, zero or one control process plus any number of additional processes.
Not all unit types manage processes of these types however. For example, for
mount units, control processes are defined (which are the invocations of
/bin/mount and /bin/umount), but no main process is defined. If omitted,
defaults to all.
-s, --signal=
When used with kill, choose which signal to send
to selected processes. Must be one of the well-known signal specifiers such as
SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGSTOP. If omitted, defaults to
SIGTERM.
-f, --force
When used with
enable, overwrite any existing
conflicting symlinks.
When used with edit, create all of the specified units
which do not already exist.
When used with halt, poweroff, reboot or
kexec, execute the selected operation without shutting down all
units. However, all processes will be killed forcibly and all file systems
are unmounted or remounted read-only. This is hence a drastic but relatively
safe option to request an immediate reboot. If --force is specified
twice for these operations (with the exception of kexec), they will
be executed immediately, without terminating any processes or unmounting any
file systems. Warning: specifying --force twice with any of these
operations might result in data loss. Note that when --force is
specified twice the selected operation is executed by systemctl
itself, and the system manager is not contacted. This means the command
should succeed even when the system manager hangs or crashed.
--message=
When used with halt, poweroff,
reboot or kexec, set a short message explaining the reason for
the operation. The message will be logged together with the default shutdown
message.
--now
When used with enable, the units will also be
started. When used with disable or mask, the units will also be
stopped. The start or stop operation is only carried out when the respective
enable or disable operation has been successful.
--root=
When used with
enable/disable/is-enabled (and related commands), use the
specified root path when looking for unit files. If this option is present,
systemctl will operate on the file system directly, instead of
communicating with the systemd daemon to carry out changes.
--runtime
When used with
enable,
disable,
edit, (and related commands), make changes only temporarily, so that
they are lost on the next reboot. This will have the effect that changes are
not made in subdirectories of /etc but in /run, with identical immediate
effects, however, since the latter is lost on reboot, the changes are lost
too.
Similarly, when used with set-property, make changes only
temporarily, so that they are lost on the next reboot.
--preset-mode=
Takes one of "full" (the default),
"enable-only", "disable-only". When used with the
preset or preset-all commands, controls whether units shall be
disabled and enabled according to the preset rules, or only enabled, or only
disabled.
-n, --lines=
When used with status, controls the number of
journal lines to show, counting from the most recent ones. Takes a positive
integer argument. Defaults to 10.
-o, --output=
When used with
status, controls the formatting of
the journal entries that are shown. For the available choices, see
journalctl(1). Defaults to "short".
--firmware-setup
When used with the reboot command, indicate to the
system's firmware to boot into setup mode. Note that this is currently only
supported on some EFI systems and only if the system was booted in EFI
mode.
--plain
When used with list-dependencies,
list-units or list-machines, the output is printed as a list
instead of a tree, and the bullet circles are omitted.
-H, --host=
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a
username and hostname separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname
may optionally be suffixed by a container name, separated by ":",
which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This
will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names
may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.
-M, --machine=
Execute operation on a local container. Specify a
container name to connect to.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
--no-legend
Do not print the legend, i.e. column headers and the
footer with hints.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
COMMANDS¶
The following commands are understood:
Unit Commands¶
list-units [PATTERN...]
List units that
systemd currently has in memory.
This includes units that are either referenced directly or through a
dependency, units that are pinned by applications programmatically, or units
that were active in the past and have failed. By default only units which are
active, have pending jobs, or have failed are shown; this can be changed with
option
--all. If one or more
PATTERNs are specified, only units
matching one of them are shown. The units that are shown are additionally
filtered by
--type= and
--state= if those options are specified.
This is the default command.
list-sockets [PATTERN...]
List socket units currently in memory, ordered by
listening address. If one or more
PATTERNs are specified, only socket
units matching one of them are shown. Produces output similar to
LISTEN UNIT ACTIVATES
/dev/initctl systemd-initctl.socket systemd-initctl.service
...
[::]:22 sshd.socket sshd.service
kobject-uevent 1 systemd-udevd-kernel.socket systemd-udevd.service
5 sockets listed.
Note: because the addresses might contains spaces, this output is
not suitable for programmatic consumption.
Also see --show-types, --all, and
--state=.
list-timers [PATTERN...]
List timer units currently in memory, ordered by the time
they elapse next. If one or more
PATTERNs are specified, only units
matching one of them are shown.
Also see --all and --state=.
start PATTERN...
Start (activate) one or more units specified on the
command line.
Note that glob patterns operate on the set of primary names of
units currently in memory. Units which are not active and are not in a
failed state usually are not in memory, and will not be matched by any
pattern. In addition, in case of instantiated units, systemd is often
unaware of the instance name until the instance has been started. Therefore,
using glob patterns with start has limited usefulness. Also,
secondary alias names of units are not considered.
stop PATTERN...
Stop (deactivate) one or more units specified on the
command line.
reload PATTERN...
Asks all units listed on the command line to reload their
configuration. Note that this will reload the service-specific configuration,
not the unit configuration file of systemd. If you want systemd to reload the
configuration file of a unit, use the
daemon-reload command. In other
words: for the example case of Apache, this will reload Apache's httpd.conf in
the web server, not the apache.service systemd unit file.
This command should not be confused with the daemon-reload
command.
restart PATTERN...
Restart one or more units specified on the command line.
If the units are not running yet, they will be started.
try-restart PATTERN...
Restart one or more units specified on the command line
if the units are running. This does nothing if units are not running.
reload-or-restart PATTERN...
Reload one or more units if they support it. If not,
restart them instead. If the units are not running yet, they will be
started.
try-reload-or-restart PATTERN...
Reload one or more units if they support it. If not,
restart them instead. This does nothing if the units are not running.
isolate NAME
Start the unit specified on the command line and its
dependencies and stop all others. If a unit name with no extension is given,
an extension of ".target" will be assumed.
This is similar to changing the runlevel in a traditional init
system. The isolate command will immediately stop processes that are
not enabled in the new unit, possibly including the graphical environment or
terminal you are currently using.
Note that this is allowed only on units where AllowIsolate=
is enabled. See systemd.unit(5) for details.
kill PATTERN...
Send a signal to one or more processes of the unit. Use
--kill-who= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to
select the signal to send.
is-active PATTERN...
Check whether any of the specified units are active (i.e.
running). Returns an exit code 0 if at least one is active, or non-zero
otherwise. Unless --quiet is specified, this will also print the
current unit state to standard output.
is-failed PATTERN...
Check whether any of the specified units are in a
"failed" state. Returns an exit code 0 if at least one has
failed, non-zero otherwise. Unless --quiet is specified, this will also
print the current unit state to standard output.
status [PATTERN...|PID...]]
Show terse runtime status information about one or more
units, followed by most recent log data from the journal. If no units are
specified, show system status. If combined with
--all, also show the
status of all units (subject to limitations specified with
-t). If a
PID is passed, show information about the unit the process belongs to.
This function is intended to generate human-readable output. If
you are looking for computer-parsable output, use show instead. By
default, this function only shows 10 lines of output and ellipsizes lines to
fit in the terminal window. This can be changed with --lines and
--full, see above. In addition, journalctl
--unit=NAME or journalctl
--user-unit=NAME use a similar filter for messages and
might be more convenient.
show [PATTERN...|JOB...]
Show properties of one or more units, jobs, or the
manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be
shown. If a unit name is specified, properties of the unit are shown, and if a
job ID is specified, properties of the job are shown. By default, empty
properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select
specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended
to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use status if
you are looking for formatted human-readable output.
cat PATTERN...
Show backing files of one or more units. Prints the
"fragment" and "drop-ins" (source files) of units. Each
file is preceded by a comment which includes the file name. Note that this
shows the contents of the backing files on disk, which may not match the
system manager's understanding of these units if any unit files were updated
on disk and the daemon-reload command wasn't issued since.
set-property NAME
ASSIGNMENT...
Set the specified unit properties at runtime where this
is supported. This allows changing configuration parameter properties such as
resource control settings at runtime. Not all properties may be changed at
runtime, but many resource control settings (primarily those in
systemd.resource-control(5)) may. The changes are applied instantly,
and stored on disk for future boots, unless
--runtime is passed, in
which case the settings only apply until the next reboot. The syntax of the
property assignment follows closely the syntax of assignments in unit files.
Example: systemctl set-property foobar.service
CPUShares=777
If the specified unit appears to be inactive, the changes will be
only stored on disk as described previously hence they will be effective
when the unit will be started.
Note that this command allows changing multiple properties at the
same time, which is preferable over setting them individually. Like unit
file configuration settings, assigning the empty list to list parameters
will reset the list.
help
PATTERN...|PID...
Show manual pages for one or more units, if available. If
a PID is given, the manual pages for the unit the process belongs to are
shown.
reset-failed [PATTERN...]
Reset the "failed" state of the specified
units, or if no unit name is passed, reset the state of all units. When a unit
fails in some way (i.e. process exiting with non-zero error code, terminating
abnormally or timing out), it will automatically enter the "failed"
state and its exit code and status is recorded for introspection by the
administrator until the service is restarted or reset with this command.
list-dependencies [NAME]
Shows units required and wanted by the specified unit.
This recursively lists units following the
Requires=,
Requisite=,
ConsistsOf=,
Wants=,
BindsTo=
dependencies. If no unit is specified, default.target is implied.
By default, only target units are recursively expanded. When
--all is passed, all other units are recursively expanded as
well.
Options --reverse, --after, --before may be
used to change what types of dependencies are shown.
Unit File Commands¶
list-unit-files [PATTERN...]
List unit files installed on the system, in combination
with their enablement state (as reported by is-enabled). If one or more
PATTERNs are specified, only unit files whose name matches one of them
are shown (patterns matching unit file system paths are not supported).
enable NAME..., enable
PATH...
Enable one or more units or unit instances. This will
create a set of symlinks, as encoded in the "[Install]" sections of
the indicated unit files. After the symlinks have been created, the system
manager configuration is reloaded (in a way equivalent to
daemon-reload), in order to ensure the changes are taken into account
immediately. Note that this does
not have the effect of also starting
any of the units being enabled. If this is desired, combine this command with
the
--now switch, or invoke
start with appropriate arguments
later. Note that in case of unit instance enablement (i.e. enablement of units
of the form foo@bar.service), symlinks named the same as instances are created
in the unit configuration directory, however they point to the single template
unit file they are instantiated from.
This command expects either valid unit names (in which case
various unit file directories are automatically searched for unit files with
appropriate names), or absolute paths to unit files (in which case these
files are read directly). If a specified unit file is located outside of the
usual unit file directories, an additional symlink is created, linking it
into the unit configuration path, thus ensuring it is found when requested
by commands such as start.
This command will print the file system operations executed. This
output may be suppressed by passing --quiet.
Note that this operation creates only the symlinks suggested in
the "[Install]" section of the unit files. While this command is
the recommended way to manipulate the unit configuration directory, the
administrator is free to make additional changes manually by placing or
removing symlinks below this directory. This is particularly useful to
create configurations that deviate from the suggested default installation.
In this case, the administrator must make sure to invoke
daemon-reload manually as necessary, in order to ensure the changes
are taken into account.
Enabling units should not be confused with starting (activating)
units, as done by the start command. Enabling and starting units is
orthogonal: units may be enabled without being started and started without
being enabled. Enabling simply hooks the unit into various suggested places
(for example, so that the unit is automatically started on boot or when a
particular kind of hardware is plugged in). Starting actually spawns the
daemon process (in case of service units), or binds the socket (in case of
socket units), and so on.
Depending on whether --system, --user,
--runtime, or --global is specified, this enables the unit for
the system, for the calling user only, for only this boot of the system, or
for all future logins of all users, or only this boot. Note that in the last
case, no systemd daemon configuration is reloaded.
Using enable on masked units is not supported and results
in an error.
disable NAME...
Disables one or more units. This removes all symlinks to
the unit files backing the specified units from the unit configuration
directory, and hence undoes any changes made by
enable or
link.
Note that this removes
all symlinks to matching unit files, including
manually created symlinks, and not just those actually created by
enable or
link. Note that while
disable undoes the effect
of
enable, the two commands are otherwise not symmetric, as
disable may remove more symlinks than a prior
enable invocation
of the same unit created.
This command expects valid unit names only, it does not accept
paths to unit files.
In addition to the units specified as arguments, all units are
disabled that are listed in the Also= setting contained in the
"[Install]" section of any of the unit files being operated
on.
This command implicitly reloads the system manager configuration
after completing the operation. Note that this command does not implicitly
stop the units that are being disabled. If this is desired, either combine
this command with the --now switch, or invoke the stop command
with appropriate arguments later.
This command will print information about the file system
operations (symlink removals) executed. This output may be suppressed by
passing --quiet.
This command honors --system, --user,
--runtime and --global in a similar way as enable.
reenable NAME...
Reenable one or more units, as specified on the command
line. This is a combination of disable and enable and is useful
to reset the symlinks a unit file is enabled with to the defaults configured
in its "[Install]" section. This command expects a unit name only,
it does not accept paths to unit files.
preset NAME...
Reset the enable/disable status one or more unit files,
as specified on the command line, to the defaults configured in the preset
policy files. This has the same effect as
disable or
enable,
depending how the unit is listed in the preset files.
Use --preset-mode= to control whether units shall be
enabled and disabled, or only enabled, or only disabled.
If the unit carries no install information, it will be silently
ignored by this command. NAME must be the real unit name, any alias
names are ignored silently.
For more information on the preset policy format, see
systemd.preset(5). For more information on the concept of presets,
please consult the Preset[1] document.
preset-all
Resets all installed unit files to the defaults
configured in the preset policy file (see above).
Use --preset-mode= to control whether units shall be
enabled and disabled, or only enabled, or only disabled.
is-enabled NAME...
Checks whether any of the specified unit files are
enabled (as with
enable). Returns an exit code of 0 if at least one is
enabled, non-zero otherwise. Prints the current enable status (see table). To
suppress this output, use
--quiet. To show installation targets, use
--full.
Table 1. is-enabled output
Name |
Description |
Exit Code |
"enabled" |
Enabled via .wants/, .requires/ or alias symlinks
(permanently in /etc/systemd/system/, or transiently in
/run/systemd/system/). |
0 |
"enabled-runtime" |
"linked" |
Made available through one or more symlinks to the unit file
(permanently in /etc/systemd/system/ or transiently in
/run/systemd/system/), even though the unit file might reside outside of
the unit file search path. |
> 0 |
"linked-runtime" |
"masked" |
Completely disabled, so that any start operation on it fails
(permanently in /etc/systemd/system/ or transiently in
/run/systemd/systemd/). |
> 0 |
"masked-runtime" |
"static" |
The unit file is not enabled, and has no provisions for enabling in the
"[Install]" unit file section. |
0 |
"indirect" |
The unit file itself is not enabled, but it has a non-empty Also=
setting in the "[Install]" unit file section, listing other unit
files that might be enabled. |
0 |
"disabled" |
The unit file is not enabled, but contains an "[Install]"
section with installation instructions. |
> 0 |
"generated" |
The unit file was generated dynamically via a generator tool. See
systemd.generator(7). Generated unit files may not be enabled, they
are enabled implicitly by their generator. |
0 |
"transient" |
The unit file has been created dynamically with the runtime API.
Transient units may not be enabled. |
0 |
"bad" |
The unit file is invalid or another error occurred. Note that
is-enabled will not actually return this state, but print an error
message instead. However the unit file listing printed by
list-unit-files might show it. |
> 0 |
mask NAME...
Mask one or more units, as specified on the command line.
This will link these unit files to /dev/null, making it impossible to start
them. This is a stronger version of disable, since it prohibits all
kinds of activation of the unit, including enablement and manual activation.
Use this option with care. This honors the --runtime option to only
mask temporarily until the next reboot of the system. The --now option
may be used to ensure that the units are also stopped. This command expects
valid unit names only, it does not accept unit file paths.
unmask NAME...
Unmask one or more unit files, as specified on the
command line. This will undo the effect of mask. This command expects
valid unit names only, it does not accept unit file paths.
link PATH...
Link a unit file that is not in the unit file search
paths into the unit file search path. This command expects an absolute path to
a unit file. The effect of this may be undone with disable. The effect
of this command is that a unit file is made available for commands such as
start, even though it is not installed directly in the unit search
path.
revert NAME...
Revert one or more unit files to their vendor versions.
This command removes drop-in configuration files that modify the specified
units, as well as any user-configured unit file that overrides a matching
vendor supplied unit file. Specifically, for a unit "foo.service"
the matching directories "foo.service.d/" with all their contained
files are removed, both below the persistent and runtime configuration
directories (i.e. below /etc/systemd/system and /run/systemd/system); if the
unit file has a vendor-supplied version (i.e. a unit file located below /usr)
any matching persistent or runtime unit file that overrides it is removed,
too. Note that if a unit file has no vendor-supplied version (i.e. is only
defined below /etc/systemd/system or /run/systemd/system, but not in a unit
file stored below /usr), then it is not removed. Also, if a unit is masked, it
is unmasked.
Effectively, this command may be used to undo all changes made
with systemctl edit, systemctl set-property and systemctl
mask and puts the original unit file with its settings back in
effect.
add-wants TARGET
NAME..., add-requires
TARGET NAME...
Adds "Wants=" or "Requires="
dependencies, respectively, to the specified
TARGET for one or more
units.
This command honors --system, --user,
--runtime and --global in a way similar to enable.
edit NAME...
Edit a drop-in snippet or a whole replacement file if
--full is specified, to extend or override the specified unit.
Depending on whether --system (the default), --user,
or --global is specified, this command creates a drop-in file for
each unit either for the system, for the calling user, or for all futures
logins of all users. Then, the editor (see the "Environment"
section below) is invoked on temporary files which will be written to the
real location if the editor exits successfully.
If --full is specified, this will copy the original units
instead of creating drop-in files.
If --force is specified and any units do not already exist,
new unit files will be opened for editing.
If --runtime is specified, the changes will be made
temporarily in /run and they will be lost on the next reboot.
If the temporary file is empty upon exit, the modification of the
related unit is canceled.
After the units have been edited, systemd configuration is
reloaded (in a way that is equivalent to daemon-reload).
Note that this command cannot be used to remotely edit units and
that you cannot temporarily edit units which are in /etc, since they take
precedence over /run.
get-default
Return the default target to boot into. This returns the
target unit name default.target is aliased (symlinked) to.
set-default NAME
Set the default target to boot into. This sets (symlinks)
the default.target alias to the given target unit.
Machine Commands¶
list-machines [PATTERN...]
List the host and all running local containers with their
state. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only containers matching
one of them are shown.
Job Commands¶
list-jobs [PATTERN...]
List jobs that are in progress. If one or more
PATTERNs are specified, only jobs for units matching one of them are
shown.
cancel JOB...
Cancel one or more jobs specified on the command line by
their numeric job IDs. If no job ID is specified, cancel all pending
jobs.
Environment Commands¶
show-environment
Dump the systemd manager environment block. The
environment block will be dumped in straight-forward form suitable for
sourcing into a shell script. This environment block will be passed to all
processes the manager spawns.
set-environment VARIABLE=VALUE...
Set one or more systemd manager environment variables, as
specified on the command line.
unset-environment VARIABLE...
Unset one or more systemd manager environment variables.
If only a variable name is specified, it will be removed regardless of its
value. If a variable and a value are specified, the variable is only removed
if it has the specified value.
import-environment [VARIABLE...]
Import all, one or more environment variables set on the
client into the systemd manager environment block. If no arguments are passed,
the entire environment block is imported. Otherwise, a list of one or more
environment variable names should be passed, whose client-side values are then
imported into the manager's environment block.
Manager Lifecycle Commands¶
daemon-reload
Reload the systemd manager configuration. This will rerun
all generators (see
systemd.generator(7)), reload all unit files, and
recreate the entire dependency tree. While the daemon is being reloaded, all
sockets systemd listens on behalf of user configuration will stay accessible.
This command should not be confused with the reload
command.
daemon-reexec
Reexecute the systemd manager. This will serialize the
manager state, reexecute the process and deserialize the state again. This
command is of little use except for debugging and package upgrades. Sometimes,
it might be helpful as a heavy-weight daemon-reload. While the daemon
is being reexecuted, all sockets systemd listening on behalf of user
configuration will stay accessible.
System Commands¶
is-system-running
Checks whether the system is operational. This returns
success (exit code 0) when the system is fully up and running, specifically
not in startup, shutdown or maintenance mode, and with no failed services.
Failure is returned otherwise (exit code non-zero). In addition, the current
state is printed in a short string to standard output, see the table below.
Use
--quiet to suppress this output.
Table 2. is-system-running output
Name |
Description |
Exit Code |
initializing |
Early bootup, before basic.target is reached or the maintenance
state entered. |
> 0 |
starting |
Late bootup, before the job queue becomes idle for the first time, or
one of the rescue targets are reached. |
> 0 |
running |
The system is fully operational. |
0 |
degraded |
The system is operational but one or more units failed. |
> 0 |
maintenance |
The rescue or emergency target is active. |
> 0 |
stopping |
The manager is shutting down. |
> 0 |
offline |
The manager is not running. Specifically, this is the operational state
if an incompatible program is running as system manager (PID 1). |
> 0 |
unknown |
The operational state could not be determined, due to lack of resources
or another error cause. |
> 0 |
default
Enter default mode. This is mostly equivalent to
isolate default.target.
rescue
Enter rescue mode. This is mostly equivalent to
isolate rescue.target, but also prints a wall message to all
users.
emergency
Enter emergency mode. This is mostly equivalent to
isolate emergency.target, but also prints a wall message to all
users.
halt
Shut down and halt the system. This is mostly equivalent
to start halt.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly, but also prints a
wall message to all users. If combined with --force, shutdown of all
running services is skipped, however all processes are killed and all file
systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed by the system
halt. If --force is specified twice, the operation is immediately
executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file systems.
This may result in data loss. Note that when --force is specified twice
the halt operation is executed by systemctl itself, and the system
manager is not contacted. This means the command should succeed even when the
system manager hangs or crashed.
poweroff
Shut down and power-off the system. This is mostly
equivalent to start poweroff.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly,
but also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force,
shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed
and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed
by the powering off. If --force is specified twice, the operation is
immediately executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file
systems. This may result in data loss. Note that when --force is
specified twice the power-off operation is executed by systemctl
itself, and the system manager is not contacted. This means the command should
succeed even when the system manager hangs or crashed.
reboot [arg]
Shut down and reboot the system. This is mostly
equivalent to
start reboot.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly, but
also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with
--force,
shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed
and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed
by the reboot. If
--force is specified twice, the operation is
immediately executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file
systems. This may result in data loss. Note that when
--force is
specified twice the reboot operation is executed by
systemctl itself,
and the system manager is not contacted. This means the command should succeed
even when the system manager hangs or crashed.
If the optional argument arg is given, it will be passed as
the optional argument to the reboot(2) system call. The value is
architecture and firmware specific. As an example, "recovery"
might be used to trigger system recovery, and "fota" might be used
to trigger a “firmware over the air” update.
kexec
Shut down and reboot the system via kexec. This is mostly
equivalent to start kexec.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly, but
also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force,
shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed
and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed
by the reboot.
exit [EXIT_CODE]
Ask the systemd manager to quit. This is only supported
for user service managers (i.e. in conjunction with the
--user option)
or in containers and is equivalent to
poweroff otherwise.
The systemd manager can exit with a non-zero exit code if the
optional argument EXIT_CODE is given.
switch-root ROOT
[INIT]
Switches to a different root directory and executes a new
system manager process below it. This is intended for usage in initial RAM
disks ("initrd"), and will transition from the initrd's system
manager process (a.k.a. "init" process) to the main system manager
process which is loaded from the actual host volume. This call takes two
arguments: the directory that is to become the new root directory, and the
path to the new system manager binary below it to execute as PID 1. If the
latter is omitted or the empty string, a systemd binary will automatically be
searched for and used as init. If the system manager path is omitted, equal to
the empty string or identical to the path to the systemd binary, the state of
the initrd's system manager process is passed to the main system manager,
which allows later introspection of the state of the services involved in the
initrd boot phase.
suspend
Suspend the system. This will trigger activation of the
special suspend.target target.
hibernate
Hibernate the system. This will trigger activation of the
special hibernate.target target.
hybrid-sleep
Hibernate and suspend the system. This will trigger
activation of the special hybrid-sleep.target target.
Parameter Syntax¶
Unit commands listed above take either a single unit name (designated as
NAME), or multiple unit specifications (designated as
PATTERN...). In the first case, the unit name with or without a suffix
must be given. If the suffix is not specified (unit name is
"abbreviated"), systemctl will append a suitable suffix,
".service" by default, and a type-specific suffix in case of
commands which operate only on specific unit types. For example,
and
# systemctl start sshd.service
are equivalent, as are
# systemctl isolate default
and
# systemctl isolate default.target
Note that (absolute) paths to device nodes are automatically
converted to device unit names, and other (absolute) paths to mount unit
names.
# systemctl status /dev/sda
# systemctl status /home
are equivalent to:
# systemctl status dev-sda.device
# systemctl status home.mount
In the second case, shell-style globs will be matched against the
primary names of all units currently in memory; literal unit names, with or
without a suffix, will be treated as in the first case. This means that
literal unit names always refer to exactly one unit, but globs may match
zero units and this is not considered an error.
Glob patterns use fnmatch(3), so normal shell-style
globbing rules are used, and "*", "?", "[]"
may be used. See glob(7) for more details. The patterns are matched
against the primary names of units currently in memory, and patterns which
do not match anything are silently skipped. For example:
# systemctl stop sshd@*.service
will stop all sshd@.service instances. Note that alias names of
units, and units that aren't in memory are not considered for glob
expansion.
For unit file commands, the specified NAME should be the
name of the unit file (possibly abbreviated, see above), or the absolute
path to the unit file:
# systemctl enable foo.service
or
# systemctl link /path/to/foo.service