SYSTEMCTL(1)systemctlSYSTEMCTL(1)NAMEsystemctl - Control the systemd system and service manager
SYNOPSISsystemctl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND [NAME...]
DESCRIPTIONsystemctl may be used to introspect and control the state of the
systemd(1) system and service manager.
For Unit Commands the NAME represents full name of unit.
systemctl start foo.service
For Unit File Commands the NAME represents full name of the unit file,
or absolute path to the unit file.
systemctl start /path/to/foo.service
While working with services/service files, systemctl is able to append
.service suffix when it is missing.
systemctl start foo
OPTIONS
The following options are understood:
-h, --help
Prints a short help text and exits.
--version
Prints a short version string and exits.
-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 specified
states.
-p, --property=
When showing unit/job/manager properties with the show command,
limit display to certain properties as specified as argument. If
not specified, all set properties are shown. The argument should be
a comma-separated list of property names, such as "MainPID". If
specified more than once, all properties with the specified names
are shown.
-a, --all
When listing units, show all loaded units, regardless of their
state, including inactive units. When showing unit/job/manager
properties, show all properties regardless whether they are set or
not.
To list all units installed on the system, use the list-unit-files
command instead.
--reverse
Show reverse dependencies between units with list-dependencies,
i.e. units with dependencies of type Wants= or Requires= on the
given unit.
--after, --before
Show which units are started after or before with
list-dependencies, respectively.
-l, --full
Do not ellipsize unit names, process tree entries, and truncate
unit descriptions in the output of list-units and list-jobs.
--fail
If the requested operation conflicts with a pending unfinished job,
fail the command. If this is not specified, the requested operation
will replace the pending job, if necessary. Do not confuse with
--failed.
--show-types
When showing sockets, show the type of the socket.
--irreversible
Mark this transaction's jobs as irreversible. This prevents future
conflicting transactions from replacing these jobs. The jobs can
still be cancelled using the cancel command.
--ignore-dependencies
When enqueuing a new job, ignore all its dependencies and execute
it 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.
-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 output to standard output in snapshot, is-active,
is-failed, enable and disable.
--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 it is completed. By passing this
argument, it is only verified and enqueued.
--no-legend
Do not print a legend, i.e. the column headers and the footer with
hints.
--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.
--system
Talk to the systemd system manager. (Default)
--user
Talk to the systemd manager of the calling user.
--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 kill. Must be one of
main, control or all to select whether to kill only the main
process of the unit, the control process or all processes of the
unit. 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 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, they will be executed
immediately without terminating any processes or umounting any file
systems. Warning: specifying --force twice with any of these
operations might result in data loss.
--root=
When used with enable/disable/is-enabled (and related commands),
use alternative root path when looking for unit files.
--runtime
When used with enable, disable, (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.
-H, --host
Execute operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or username and
hostname separated by "@", to connect to. This will use SSH to talk
to the remote systemd instance.
-P, --privileged
Acquire privileges via PolicyKit before executing the operation.
-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".
--plain
When used with list-dependencies, the output is printed as a list
instead of a tree.
COMMANDS
The following commands are understood:
Unit Commands
list-units
List known units (subject to limitations specified with -t).
This is the default command.
list-sockets
List socket units ordered by the listening address. 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.
See also the options --show-types, --all, and --failed.
start NAME...
Start (activate) one or more units specified on the command line.
stop NAME...
Stop (deactivate) one or more units specified on the command line.
reload NAME...
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 or load
commands.
restart NAME...
Restart one or more units specified on the command line. If the
units are not running yet, they will be started.
try-restart NAME...
Restart one or more units specified on the command line if the
units are running. This does nothing if units are not running. Note
that, for compatibility with Red Hat init scripts, condrestart is
equivalent to this command.
reload-or-restart NAME...
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.
reload-or-try-restart NAME...
Reload one or more units if they support it. If not, restart them
instead. This does nothing if the units are not running. Note that,
for compatibility with SysV init scripts, force-reload is
equivalent to this command.
isolate NAME
Start the unit specified on the command line and its dependencies
and stop all others.
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 NAME...
Send a signal to one or more processes of the unit. Use --kill-who=
to select which process to kill. Use --kill-mode= to select the
kill mode and --signal= to select the signal to send.
is-active NAME...
Check whether any of the specified units are active (i.e. running).
Returns an exit code 0 if at least one is active, non-zero
otherwise. Unless --quiet is specified, this will also print the
current unit state to STDOUT.
is-failed NAME...
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 STDOUT.
status [NAME...|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 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.
show [NAME...|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 is
shown, and if a job id is specified, properties of the job is
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.
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
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 NAME...|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 [NAME...]
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 required and wanted units of the specified unit. If no unit
is specified, default.target is implied. Target units are
recursively expanded. When --all is passed, all other units are
recursively expanded as well.
Unit File Commands
list-unit-files
List installed unit files.
enable NAME...
Enable one or more unit files or unit file instances, as specified
on the command line. This will create a number of symlinks as
encoded in the "[Install]" sections of the unit files. After the
symlinks have been created, the systemd configuration is reloaded
(in a way that is equivalent to daemon-reload) 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, a separate start command must be invoked for the
unit. Also note that in case of instance enablement, symlinks named
the same as instances are created in the install location, however
they all point to the same template unit file.
This command will print the actions executed. This output may be
suppressed by passing --quiet.
Note that this operation creates only the suggested symlinks for
the units. 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 in the
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 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.
disable NAME...
Disables one or more units. This removes all symlinks to the
specified unit files from the unit configuration directory, and
hence undoes the changes made by enable. Note however that this
removes all symlinks to the unit files (i.e. including manual
additions), not just those actually created by enable. This call
implicitly reloads the systemd daemon configuration after
completing the disabling of the units. Note that this command does
not implicitly stop the units that are being disabled. If this is
desired, an additional stop command should be executed afterwards.
This command will print the actions executed. This output may be
suppressed by passing --quiet.
This command honors --system, --user, --runtime, --global in a
similar way as enable.
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.
Table 1. is-enabled output
┌──────────────────┬─────────────────────┬──────────────┐
│Printed string │ Meaning │ Return value │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│"enabled" │ Enabled through a │ │
├──────────────────┤ symlink in .wants │ │
│"enabled-runtime" │ directory │ 0 │
│ │ (permanently or │ │
│ │ just in /run) │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│"linked" │ Made available │ │
├──────────────────┤ through a symlink │ │
│"linked-runtime" │ to the unit file │ 1 │
│ │ (permanently or │ │
│ │ just in /run) │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│"masked" │ Disabled entirely │ │
├──────────────────┤ (permanently or │ 1 │
│"masked-runtime" │ just in /run) │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│"static" │ Unit is not │ 0 │
│ │ enabled, but has no │ │
│ │ provisions for │ │
│ │ enabling in │ │
│ │ [Install] section │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────┤
│"disabled" │ Unit is not enabled │ 1 │
└──────────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────┘
reenable NAME...
Reenable one or more unit files, as specified on the command line.
This is a combination of disable and enable and is useful to reset
the symlinks a unit is enabled with to the defaults configured in
the "[Install]" section of the unit file.
preset NAME...
Reset 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. 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.
mask NAME...
Mask one or more unit files, as specified on the command line. This
will link these units 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 manual activation. Use
this option with care. This honors the --runtime option, to only
mask temporarily until the next reoobt of the system.
unmask NAME...
Unmask one or more unit files, as specified on the command line.
This will undo the effect of mask.
link FILENAME...
Link a unit file that is not in the unit file search paths into the
unit file search path. This requires an absolute path to a unit
file. The effect of this can be undone with disable. The effect of
this command is that a unit file is available for start and other
commands although it is not installed directly in the unit search
path.
get-default
Get the default target specified via default.target link.
set-default NAME
Set the default target to boot into. Command links default.target
to the given unit.
Job Commands
list-jobs
List jobs that are in progress.
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.
Snapshot Commands
snapshot [NAME]
Create a snapshot. If a snapshot name is specified, the new
snapshot will be named after it. If none is specified, an automatic
snapshot name is generated. In either case, the snapshot name used
is printed to STDOUT, unless --quiet is specified.
A snapshot refers to a saved state of the systemd manager. It is
implemented itself as a unit that is generated dynamically with
this command and has dependencies on all units active at the time.
At a later time, the user may return to this state by using the
isolate command on the snapshot unit.
Snapshots are only useful for saving and restoring which units are
running or are stopped, they do not save/restore any other state.
Snapshots are dynamic and lost on reboot.
delete NAME...
Remove a snapshot previously created with snapshot.
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.
Manager Lifecycle Commands
daemon-reload
Reload systemd manager configuration. This will reload all unit
files and recreate the entire dependency tree. While the daemon is
being reloaded, all sockets systemd listens on on behalf of user
configuration will stay accessible.
This command should not be confused with the load or reload
commands.
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
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 --irreversible, 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.
poweroff
Shut down and power-off the system. This is mostly equivalent to
start poweroff.target --irreversible, 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.
reboot
Shut down and reboot the system. This is mostly equivalent to start
reboot.target --irreversible, 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.
kexec
Shut down and reboot the system via kexec. This is mostly
equivalent to start kexec.target --irreversible, 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
Ask the systemd manager to quit. This is only supported for user
service managers (i.e. in conjunction with the --user option) and
will fail otherwise.
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.
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. 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 or equal to the empty string, 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.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
ENVIRONMENT
$SYSTEMD_PAGER
Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER.
Setting this to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to
passing --no-pager.
SEE ALSOsystemd(1), systemadm(1), journalctl(1), loginctl(1), systemd.unit(5),
systemd.resource-management(5), systemd.special(7), wall(1),
systemd.preset(5)NOTES
1. Preset
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Preset
systemd 208SYSTEMCTL(1)