systemctl(1) - Man pages

SYSTEMCTL(1) systemctl SYSTEMCTL(1)

NAME
systemctl - Control the systemd system and service manager

SYNOPSIS
systemctl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND [UNIT...]

DESCRIPTION
systemctl may be used to introspect and control the state of the
"systemd" system and service manager. Please refer to systemd(1) for an
introduction into the basic concepts and functionality this tool
manages.

COMMANDS
The following commands are understood:

Unit Commands (Introspection and Modification)
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.

Note that this command does not show unit templates, but only
instances of unit templates. Units templates that aren't
instantiated are not runnable, and will thus never show up in the
output of this command. Specifically this means that foo@.service
will never be shown in this list — unless instantiated, e.g. as
foo@bar.service. Use list-unit-files (see below) for listing
installed unit template files.

Produces output similar to

UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION
sys-module-fuse.device loaded active plugged /sys/module/fuse
-.mount loaded active mounted Root Mount
boot-efi.mount loaded active mounted /boot/efi
systemd-journald.service loaded active running Journal Service
systemd-logind.service loaded active running Login Service
● user@1000.service loaded failed failed User Manager for UID 1000
...
systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer loaded active waiting Daily Cleanup of Temporary Directories

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.

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

The header and the last unit of a given type are underlined if the
terminal supports that. A colored dot is shown next to services
which were masked, not found, or otherwise failed.

The LOAD column shows the load state, one of loaded, not-found,
bad-setting, error, masked. The ACTIVE columns shows the general
unit state, one of active, reloading, inactive, failed, activating,
deactivating. The SUB column shows the unit-type-specific detailed
state of the unit, possible values vary by unit type. The list of
possible LOAD, ACTIVE, and SUB states is not constant and new
systemd releases may both add and remove values.

systemctl --state=help

command maybe be used to display the current set of possible
values.

This is the default command.

list-automounts [PATTERN...]
List automount units currently in memory, ordered by mount path. If
one or more PATTERNs are specified, only automount units matching
one of them are shown. Produces output similar to

WHAT WHERE MOUNTED IDLE TIMEOUT UNIT
/dev/sdb1 /mnt/test no 120s mnt-test.automount
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc yes 0 proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.automount

2 automounts listed.

Also see --show-types, --all, and --state=.

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. Produces output similar to

NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT ACTIVATES
- - Thu 2017-02-23 13:40:29 EST 3 days ago ureadahead-stop.timer ureadahead-stop.service
Sun 2017-02-26 18:55:42 EST 1min 14s left Thu 2017-02-23 13:54:44 EST 3 days ago systemd-tmpfiles-clean.timer systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service
Sun 2017-02-26 20:37:16 EST 1h 42min left Sun 2017-02-26 11:56:36 EST 6h ago apt-daily.timer apt-daily.service
Sun 2017-02-26 20:57:49 EST 2h 3min left Sun 2017-02-26 11:56:36 EST 6h ago snapd.refresh.timer snapd.refresh.service

NEXT shows the next time the timer will run.

LEFT shows how long till the next time the timer runs.

LAST shows the last time the timer ran.

PASSED shows how long has passed since the timer last ran.

UNIT shows the name of the timer

ACTIVATES shows the name the service the timer activates when it
runs.

Also see --all and --state=.

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 runtime status information about the whole system or about one
or more units followed by most recent log data from the journal. If
no positional arguments are specified, and no unit filter is given
with --type=, --state=, or --failed, shows the status of the whole
system. If combined with --all, follows that with the status of all
units. If positional arguments are specified, each positional
argument is treated as either a unit name to show, or a glob
pattern to show units whose names match that pattern, or a PID to
show the unit containing that PID. When --type=, --state=, or
--failed are used, units are additionally filtered by the TYPE and
ACTIVE state.

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.

Note that this operation only displays runtime status, i.e.
information about the current invocation of the unit (if it is
running) or the most recent invocation (if it is not running
anymore, and has not been released from memory). Information about
earlier invocations, invocations from previous system boots, or
prior invocations that have already been released from memory may
be retrieved via journalctl --unit=.

systemd implicitly loads units as necessary, so just running the
status will attempt to load a file. The command is thus not useful
for determining if something was already loaded or not. The units
may possibly also be quickly unloaded after the operation is
completed if there's no reason to keep it in memory thereafter.

Example 1. Example output from systemctl status

$ systemctl status bluetooth
● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-01-04 13:54:04 EST; 1 weeks 0 days ago
Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)
Main PID: 930 (bluetoothd)
Status: "Running"
Tasks: 1
Memory: 648.0K
CPU: 435ms
CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service
└─930 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Jan 12 10:46:45 example.com bluetoothd[8900]: Not enough free handles to register service
Jan 12 10:46:45 example.com bluetoothd[8900]: Current Time Service could not be registered
Jan 12 10:46:45 example.com bluetoothd[8900]: gatt-time-server: Input/output error (5)

The dot ("●") uses color on supported terminals to summarize the
unit state at a glance. Along with its color, its shape varies
according to its state: "inactive" or "maintenance" is a white
circle ("○"), "active" is a green dot ("●"), "deactivating" is a
white dot, "failed" or "error" is a red cross ("×"), and
"reloading" is a green clockwise circle arrow ("↻").

The "Loaded:" line in the output will show "loaded" if the unit has
been loaded into memory. Other possible values for "Loaded:"
include: "error" if there was a problem loading it, "not-found" if
no unit file was found for this unit, "bad-setting" if an essential
unit file setting could not be parsed and "masked" if the unit file
has been masked. Along with showing the path to the unit file, this
line will also show the enablement state. Enabled units are
included in the dependency network between units, and thus are
started at boot or via some other form of activation. See the full
table of possible enablement states — including the definition of
"masked" — in the documentation for the is-enabled command.

The "Active:" line shows active state. The value is usually
"active" or "inactive". Active could mean started, bound, plugged
in, etc depending on the unit type. The unit could also be in
process of changing states, reporting a state of "activating" or
"deactivating". A special "failed" state is entered when the
service failed in some way, such as a crash, exiting with an error
code or timing out. If the failed state is entered the cause will
be logged for later reference.

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.

Many properties shown by systemctl show map directly to
configuration settings of the system and service manager and its
unit files. Note that the properties shown by the command are
generally more low-level, normalized versions of the original
configuration settings and expose runtime state in addition to
configuration. For example, properties shown for service units
include the service's current main process identifier as "MainPID"
(which is runtime state), and time settings are always exposed as
properties ending in the "...USec" suffix even if a matching
configuration options end in "...Sec", because microseconds is the
normalized time unit used internally by the system and service
manager.

For details about many of these properties, see the documentation
of the D-Bus interface backing these properties, see
org.freedesktop.systemd1(5).

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.

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.

list-dependencies [UNIT...]
Shows units required and wanted by the specified units. This
recursively lists units following the Requires=, Requisite=,
ConsistsOf=, Wants=, BindsTo= dependencies. If no units are
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.

Note that this command only lists units currently loaded into
memory by the service manager. In particular, this command is not
suitable to get a comprehensive list at all reverse dependencies on
a specific unit, as it won't list the dependencies declared by
units currently not loaded.

start PATTERN...
Start (activate) one or more units specified on the command line.

Note that unit glob patterns expand to 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.

Option --all may be used to also operate on inactive units which
are referenced by other loaded units. Note that this is not the
same as operating on "all" possible units, because as the previous
paragraph describes, such a list is ill-defined. Nevertheless,
systemctl start --all GLOB may be useful if all the units that
should match the pattern are pulled in by some target which is
known to be loaded.

stop PATTERN...
Stop (deactivate) one or more units specified on the command line.

This command will fail if the unit does not exist or if stopping of
the unit is prohibited (see RefuseManualStop= in systemd.unit(5)).
It will not fail if any of the commands configured to stop the unit
(ExecStop=, etc.) fail, because the manager will still forcibly
terminate the unit.

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...
Stop and then start one or more units specified on the command
line. If the units are not running yet, they will be started.

Note that restarting a unit with this command does not necessarily
flush out all of the unit's resources before it is started again.
For example, the per-service file descriptor storage facility (see
FileDescriptorStoreMax= in systemd.service(5)) will remain intact
as long as the unit has a job pending, and is only cleared when the
unit is fully stopped and no jobs are pending anymore. If it is
intended that the file descriptor store is flushed out, too, during
a restart operation an explicit systemctl stop command followed by
systemctl start should be issued.

try-restart PATTERN...
Stop and then start 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, stop and then
start 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, stop and then
start them instead. This does nothing if the units are not running.

isolate UNIT
Start the unit specified on the command line and its dependencies
and stop all others, unless they have IgnoreOnIsolate=yes (see
systemd.unit(5)). If a unit name with no extension is given, an
extension of ".target" will be assumed.

This command is dangerous, since it will immediately stop processes
that are not enabled in the new target, possibly including the
graphical environment or terminal you are currently using.

Note that this operation 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-whom= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to
select the signal to send.

clean PATTERN...
Remove the configuration, state, cache, logs or runtime data of the
specified units. Use --what= to select which kind of resource to
remove. For service units this may be used to remove the
directories configured with ConfigurationDirectory=,
StateDirectory=, CacheDirectory=, LogsDirectory= and
RuntimeDirectory=, see systemd.exec(5) for details. For timer units
this may be used to clear out the persistent timestamp data if
Persistent= is used and --what=state is selected, see
systemd.timer(5). This command only applies to units that use
either of these settings. If --what= is not specified, both the
cache and runtime data are removed (as these two types of data are
generally redundant and reproducible on the next invocation of the
unit).

freeze PATTERN...
Freeze one or more units specified on the command line using cgroup
freezer

Freezing the unit will cause all processes contained within the
cgroup corresponding to the unit to be suspended. Being suspended
means that unit's processes won't be scheduled to run on CPU until
thawed. Note that this command is supported only on systems that
use unified cgroup hierarchy. Unit is automatically thawed just
before we execute a job against the unit, e.g. before the unit is
stopped.

thaw PATTERN...
Thaw (unfreeze) one or more units specified on the command line.

This is the inverse operation to the freeze command and resumes the
execution of processes in the unit's cgroup.

set-property UNIT PROPERTY=VALUE...
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 immediately, 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 CPUWeight=200

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.

Example: systemctl set-property foobar.service CPUWeight=200
MemoryMax=2G IPAccounting=yes

Like with unit file configuration settings, assigning an empty
setting usually resets a property to its defaults.

Example: systemctl set-property avahi-daemon.service IPAddressDeny=

bind UNIT PATH [PATH]
Bind-mounts a file or directory from the host into the specified
unit's mount namespace. The first path argument is the source file
or directory on the host, the second path argument is the
destination file or directory in the unit's mount namespace. When
the latter is omitted, the destination path in the unit's mount
namespace is the same as the source path on the host. When combined
with the --read-only switch, a ready-only bind mount is created.
When combined with the --mkdir switch, the destination path is
first created before the mount is applied.

Note that this option is currently only supported for units that
run within a mount namespace (e.g.: with RootImage=,
PrivateMounts=, etc.). This command supports bind-mounting
directories, regular files, device nodes, AF_UNIX socket nodes, as
well as FIFOs. The bind mount is ephemeral, and it is undone as
soon as the current unit process exists. Note that the namespace
mentioned here, where the bind mount will be added to, is the one
where the main service process runs. Other processes (those
exececuted by ExecReload=, ExecStartPre=, etc.) run in distinct
namespaces.

mount-image UNIT IMAGE [PATH [PARTITION_NAME:MOUNT_OPTIONS]]
Mounts an image from the host into the specified unit's mount
namespace. The first path argument is the source image on the host,
the second path argument is the destination directory in the unit's
mount namespace (i.e. inside RootImage=/RootDirectory=). The
following argument, if any, is interpreted as a colon-separated
tuple of partition name and comma-separated list of mount options
for that partition. The format is the same as the service
MountImages= setting. When combined with the --read-only switch, a
ready-only mount is created. When combined with the --mkdir switch,
the destination path is first created before the mount is applied.

Note that this option is currently only supported for units that
run within a mount namespace (i.e. with RootImage=, PrivateMounts=,
etc.). Note that the namespace mentioned here where the image mount
will be added to, is the one where the main service process runs.
Note that the namespace mentioned here, where the bind mount will
be added to, is the one where the main service process runs. Other
processes (those exececuted by ExecReload=, ExecStartPre=, etc.)
run in distinct namespaces.

Example:

systemctl mount-image foo.service /tmp/img.raw /var/lib/image root:ro,nosuid

systemctl mount-image --mkdir bar.service /tmp/img.raw /var/lib/baz/img

service-log-level SERVICE [LEVEL]
If the LEVEL argument is not given, print the current log level as
reported by service SERVICE.

If the optional argument LEVEL is provided, then change the current
log level of the service to LEVEL. The log level should be a
typical syslog log level, i.e. a value in the range 0...7 or one of
the strings emerg, alert, crit, err, warning, notice, info, debug;
see syslog(3) for details.

The service must have the appropriate BusName=destination property
and also implement the generic org.freedesktop.LogControl1(5)
interface. (systemctl will use the generic D-Bus protocol to access
the org.freedesktop.LogControl1.LogLevel interface for the D-Bus
name destination.)

service-log-target SERVICE [TARGET]
If the TARGET argument is not given, print the current log target
as reported by service SERVICE.

If the optional argument TARGET is provided, then change the
current log target of the service to TARGET. The log target should
be one of the strings console (for log output to the service's
standard error stream), kmsg (for log output to the kernel log
buffer), journal (for log output to systemd-journald.service(8)
using the native journal protocol), syslog (for log output to the
classic syslog socket /dev/log), null (for no log output
whatsoever) or auto (for an automatically determined choice,
typically equivalent to console if the service is invoked
interactively, and journal or syslog otherwise).

For most services, only a small subset of log targets make sense.
In particular, most "normal" services should only implement
console, journal, and null. Anything else is only appropriate for
low-level services that are active in very early boot before proper
logging is established.

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 stopped/re-started or reset
with this command.

In addition to resetting the "failed" state of a unit it also
resets various other per-unit properties: the start rate limit
counter of all unit types is reset to zero, as is the restart
counter of service units. Thus, if a unit's start limit (as
configured with StartLimitIntervalSec=/StartLimitBurst=) is hit and
the unit refuses to be started again, use this command to make it
startable again.

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).

Unlike list-units this command will list template units in addition
to explicitly instantiated units.

enable UNIT..., 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.
The file system where the linked unit files are located must be
accessible when systemd is started (e.g. anything underneath /home/
or /var/ is not allowed, unless those directories are located on
the root file system).

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. 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 UNIT...
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 UNIT...
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 UNIT...
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. UNIT must be the real unit name, any
alias names are ignored silently.

For more information on the preset policy format, see
systemd.preset(5).

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 UNIT...
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/ │ │
│"enabled-runtime" │ or Alias= symlinks │ │
│ │ (permanently in │ 0 │
│ │ /etc/systemd/system/, │ │
│ │ or transiently in │ │
│ │ /run/systemd/system/). │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"linked" │ Made available through │ │
├──────────────────┤ one or more symlinks │ │
│"linked-runtime" │ to the unit file │ │
│ │ (permanently in │ │
│ │ /etc/systemd/system/ │ │
│ │ or transiently in │ > 0 │
│ │ /run/systemd/system/), │ │
│ │ even though the unit │ │
│ │ file might reside │ │
│ │ outside of the unit │ │
│ │ file search path. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"alias" │ The name is an alias │ 0 │
│ │ (symlink to another │ │
│ │ unit file). │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"masked" │ Completely disabled, │ │
├──────────────────┤ so that any start │ │
│"masked-runtime" │ operation on it fails │ │
│ │ (permanently in │ > 0 │
│ │ /etc/systemd/system/ │ │
│ │ or transiently in │ │
│ │ /run/systemd/systemd/). │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"static" │ The unit file is not │ 0 │
│ │ enabled, and has no │ │
│ │ provisions for enabling │ │
│ │ in the [Install] unit │ │
│ │ file section. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"indirect" │ The unit file itself is │ 0 │
│ │ not enabled, but it has │ │
│ │ a non-empty Also= │ │
│ │ setting in the │ │
│ │ [Install] unit file │ │
│ │ section, listing other │ │
│ │ unit files that might │ │
│ │ be enabled, or it has │ │
│ │ an alias under a │ │
│ │ different name through │ │
│ │ a symlink that is not │ │
│ │ specified in Also=. For │ │
│ │ template unit files, an │ │
│ │ instance different than │ │
│ │ the one specified in │ │
│ │ DefaultInstance= is │ │
│ │ enabled. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"disabled" │ The unit file is not │ > 0 │
│ │ enabled, but contains │ │
│ │ an [Install] section │ │
│ │ with installation │ │
│ │ instructions. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"generated" │ The unit file was │ 0 │
│ │ generated dynamically │ │
│ │ via a generator tool. │ │
│ │ See │ │
│ │ systemd.generator(7). │ │
│ │ Generated unit files │ │
│ │ may not be enabled, │ │
│ │ they are enabled │ │
│ │ implicitly by their │ │
│ │ generator. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"transient" │ The unit file has been │ 0 │
│ │ created dynamically │ │
│ │ with the runtime API. │ │
│ │ Transient units may not │ │
│ │ be enabled. │ │
├──────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│"bad" │ The unit file is │ > 0 │
│ │ 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. │ │
└──────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴───────────┘

mask UNIT...
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.

Note that this will create a symlink under the unit's name in
/etc/systemd/system/ (in case --runtime is not specified) or
/run/systemd/system/ (in case --runtime is specified). If a
matching unit file already exists under these directories this
operation will hence fail. This means that the operation is
primarily useful to mask units shipped by the vendor (as those are
shipped in /lib/systemd/system/ and not the aforementioned two
directories), but typically doesn't work for units created locally
(as those are typically placed precisely in the two aforementioned
directories). Similar restrictions apply for --user mode, in which
case the directories are below the user's home directory however.

unmask UNIT...
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 path 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. The file system where the linked unit files
are located must be accessible when systemd is started (e.g.
anything underneath /home/ or /var/ is not allowed, unless those
directories are located on the root file system).

revert UNIT...
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 UNIT..., add-requires TARGET UNIT...
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 UNIT...
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 TARGET
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.

When combined with --after or --before the list is augmented with
information on which other job each job is waiting for, and which
other jobs are waiting for it, see above.

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
systemd supports an environment block that is passed to processes the
manager spawns. The names of the variables can contain ASCII letters,
digits, and the underscore character. Variable names cannot be empty or
start with a digit. In variable values, most characters are allowed,
but the whole sequence must be valid UTF-8. (Note that control
characters like newline (NL), tab (TAB), or the escape character (ESC),
are valid ASCII and thus valid UTF-8). The total length of the
environment block is limited to _SC_ARG_MAX value defined by
sysconf(3).

show-environment
Dump the systemd manager environment block. This is the environment
block that is passed to all processes the manager spawns. The
environment block will be dumped in straightforward form suitable
for sourcing into most shells. If no special characters or
whitespace is present in the variable values, no escaping is
performed, and the assignments have the form "VARIABLE=value". If
whitespace or characters which have special meaning to the shell
are present, dollar-single-quote escaping is used, and assignments
have the form "VARIABLE=$'value'". This syntax is known to be
supported by bash(1), zsh(1), ksh(1), and busybox(1)'s ash(1), but
not dash(1) or fish(1).

Note that this shows the effective block, i.e. the combination of
environment variables configured via configuration files,
environment generators and via IPC (i.e. via the set-environment
described below). At the moment a unit process is forked off this
combined environment block will be further combined with per-unit
environment variables, which are not visible in this command.

set-environment VARIABLE=VALUE...
Set one or more service manager environment variables, as specified
on the command line. This command will fail if variable names and
values do not conform to the rules listed above.

Note that this operates on an environment block separate from the
environment block configured from service manager configuration and
environment generators. Whenever a process is invoked the two
blocks are combined (also incorporating any per-service environment
variables), and passed to it. The show-environment verb will show
the combination of the blocks, see above.

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 a list of
environment variable names is passed, client-side values are then
imported into the manager's environment block. If any names are not
valid environment variable names or have invalid values according
to the rules described above, an error is raised. If no arguments
are passed, the entire environment block inherited by the systemctl
process is imported. In this mode, any inherited invalid
environment variables are quietly ignored.

Importing of the full inherited environment block (calling this
command without any arguments) is deprecated. A shell will set
dozens of variables which only make sense locally and are only
meant for processes which are descendants of the shell. Such
variables in the global environment block are confusing to other
processes.

Manager State 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.

log-level [LEVEL]
If no argument is given, print the current log level of the
manager. If an optional argument LEVEL is provided, then the
command changes the current log level of the manager to LEVEL
(accepts the same values as --log-level= described in systemd(1)).

log-target [TARGET]
If no argument is given, print the current log target of the
manager. If an optional argument TARGET is provided, then the
command changes the current log target of the manager to TARGET
(accepts the same values as --log-target=, described in
systemd(1)).

service-watchdogs [yes|no]
If no argument is given, print the current state of service runtime
watchdogs of the manager. If an optional boolean argument is
provided, then globally enables or disables the service runtime
watchdogs (WatchdogSec=) and emergency actions (e.g. OnFailure= or
StartLimitAction=); see systemd.service(5). The hardware watchdog
is not affected by this setting.

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.

Use --wait to wait until the boot process is completed before
printing the current state and returning the appropriate error
status. If --wait is in use, states initializing or starting will
not be reported, instead the command will block until a later state
(such as running or degraded) is reached.

Table 2. is-system-running output
┌─────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────┐
│Name │ Description │ Exit Code │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│initializing │ Early bootup, │ > 0 │
│ │ before basic.target │ │
│ │ is reached or the │ │
│ │ maintenance state │ │
│ │ entered. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│starting │ Late bootup, before │ > 0 │
│ │ the job queue │ │
│ │ becomes idle for │ │
│ │ the first time, or │ │
│ │ one of the rescue │ │
│ │ targets are │ │
│ │ reached. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│running │ The system is fully │ 0 │
│ │ operational. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│degraded │ The system is │ > 0 │
│ │ operational but one │ │
│ │ or more units │ │
│ │ failed. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│maintenance │ The rescue or │ > 0 │
│ │ emergency target is │ │
│ │ active. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│stopping │ The manager is │ > 0 │
│ │ shutting down. │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│offline │ The manager is not │ > 0 │
│ │ running. │ │
│ │ Specifically, this │ │
│ │ is the operational │ │
│ │ state if an │ │
│ │ incompatible │ │
│ │ program is running │ │
│ │ as system manager │ │
│ │ (PID 1). │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│unknown │ The operational │ > 0 │
│ │ state could not be │ │
│ │ determined, due to │ │
│ │ lack of resources │ │
│ │ or another error │ │
│ │ cause. │ │
└─────────────┴─────────────────────┴───────────┘

default
Enter default mode. This is equivalent to systemctl isolate
default.target. This operation is blocking by default, use
--no-block to request asynchronous behavior.

rescue
Enter rescue mode. This is equivalent to systemctl isolate
rescue.target. This operation is blocking by default, use
--no-block to request asynchronous behavior.

emergency
Enter emergency mode. This is equivalent to systemctl isolate
emergency.target. This operation is blocking by default, use
--no-block to request asynchronous behavior.

halt
Shut down and halt the system. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl start halt.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly
--no-block, but also prints a wall message to all users. This
command is asynchronous; it will return after the halt operation is
enqueued, without waiting for it to complete. Note that this
operation will simply halt the OS kernel after shutting down,
leaving the hardware powered on. Use systemctl poweroff for
powering off the system (see below).

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 has crashed.

poweroff
Shut down and power-off the system. This is mostly equivalent to
systemctl start poweroff.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly
--no-block, but also prints a wall message to all users. This
command is asynchronous; it will return after the power-off
operation is enqueued, without waiting for it to complete.

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 has crashed.

reboot
Shut down and reboot the system.

This command mostly equivalent to systemctl start reboot.target
--job-mode=replace-irreversibly --no-block, but also prints a wall
message to all users. This command is asynchronous; it will return
after the reboot operation is enqueued, without waiting for it to
complete.

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 has crashed.

If the switch --reboot-argument= is given, it will be passed as the
optional argument to the reboot(2) system call.

Options --boot-loader-entry=, --boot-loader-menu=, and
--firmware-setup can be used to select what to do after the reboot.
See the descriptions of those options for details.

kexec
Shut down and reboot the system via kexec. This is equivalent to
systemctl start kexec.target --job-mode=replace-irreversibly
--no-block. This command is asynchronous; it will return after the
reboot operation is enqueued, without waiting for it to complete.

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 service 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. This command is
asynchronous; it will return after the exit operation is enqueued,
without waiting for it to complete.

The service manager will exit with the specified exit code, if
EXIT_CODE is passed.

switch-root ROOT [INIT]
Switches to a different root directory and executes a new system
manager process below it. This is intended for use in the 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 root files system. 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
target unit suspend.target. This command is asynchronous, and will
return after the suspend operation is successfully enqueued. It
will not wait for the suspend/resume cycle to complete.

hibernate
Hibernate the system. This will trigger activation of the special
target unit hibernate.target. This command is asynchronous, and
will return after the hibernation operation is successfully
enqueued. It will not wait for the hibernate/thaw cycle to
complete.

hybrid-sleep
Hibernate and suspend the system. This will trigger activation of
the special target unit hybrid-sleep.target. This command is
asynchronous, and will return after the hybrid sleep operation is
successfully enqueued. It will not wait for the sleep/wake-up cycle
to complete.

suspend-then-hibernate
Suspend the system and hibernate it after the delay specified in
systemd-sleep.conf. This will trigger activation of the special
target unit suspend-then-hibernate.target. This command is
asynchronous, and will return after the hybrid sleep operation is
successfully enqueued. It will not wait for the sleep/wake-up or
hibernate/thaw cycle to complete.

Parameter Syntax
Unit commands listed above take either a single unit name (designated
as UNIT), 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,

# systemctl start sshd

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 UNIT should be the name of the
unit file (possibly abbreviated, see above), or the absolute path to
the unit file:

# systemctl enable foo.service

# systemctl link /path/to/foo.service

OPTIONS
The following options are understood:

-t, --type=
The argument is a comma-separated list of unit types such as
service and socket. When units are listed with list-units, show, or
status, only units of the specified types will be shown. By
default, units of all types are 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 is a comma-separated list of unit LOAD, SUB, or ACTIVE
states. When listing units with list-units, show, or status, show
only those in the specified states. Use --state=failed or --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, most of which are derived or closely match the options
described 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.

-P
Equivalent to --value --property=, i.e. shows the value of the
property without the property name or "=". Note that using -P once
will also affect all properties listed with -p/--property=.

-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).

When used with status, show journal messages in full, even if they
include unprintable characters or are very long. By default, fields
with unprintable characters are abbreviated as "blob data". (Note
that the pager may escape unprintable characters again.)

-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.

When passed to the list-jobs command, for each printed job show
which other jobs are waiting for it. May be combined with --before
to show both the jobs waiting for each job as well as all jobs each
job is waiting for.

--before
With list-dependencies, show the units that are ordered after the
specified unit. In other words, recursively list units following
the Before= dependency.

When passed to the list-jobs command, for each printed job show
which other jobs it is waiting for. May be combined with --after to
show both the jobs waiting for each job as well as all jobs each
job is waiting for.

--with-dependencies
When used with status, cat, list-units, and list-unit-files, those
commands print all specified units and the dependencies of those
units.

Options --reverse, --after, --before may be used to change what
types of dependencies are shown.

-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 "=". Also see option -P above.

--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", "flush", or "triggering". 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.
This job mode should be used on any transaction which pulls in
shutdown.target.

"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.

"triggering" may only be used with systemctl stop. In this mode,
the specified unit and any active units that trigger it are
stopped. See the discussion of Triggers= in systemd.unit(5) for
more information about triggering units.

-T, --show-transaction
When enqueuing a unit job (for example as effect of a systemctl
start invocation or similar), show brief information about all jobs
enqueued, covering both the requested job and any added because of
unit dependencies. Note that the output will only include jobs
immediately part of the transaction requested. It is possible that
service start-up program code run as effect of the enqueued jobs
might request further jobs to be pulled in. This means that
completion of the listed jobs might ultimately entail more jobs
than the listed ones.

--fail
Shorthand for --job-mode=fail.

When used with the kill command, if no units were killed, the
operation results in an error.

--check-inhibitors=
When system shutdown or sleep state is requested, this option
controls checking of inhibitor locks. It takes one of "auto", "yes"
or "no". Defaults to "auto", which will behave like "yes" for
interactive invocations (i.e. from a TTY) and "no" for
non-interactive invocations. "yes" lets the request respect
inhibitor locks. "no" lets the request ignore inhibitor locks.

Applications can establish inhibitor locks to prevent certain
important operations (such as CD burning) from being interrupted by
system shutdown or sleep. 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 (unless
privileged). However, if "no" is specified or "auto" is specified
on a non-interactive requests, the operation will be attempted. If
locks are present, the operation may require additional privileges.

Option --force provides another way to override inhibitors.

-i
Shortcut for --check-inhibitors=no.

--dry-run
Just print what would be done. Currently supported by verbs halt,
poweroff, reboot, kexec, suspend, hibernate, hybrid-sleep,
suspend-then-hibernate, default, rescue, emergency, and exit.

-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".

When used with is-system-running, wait until the boot process is
completed before returning.

--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.

--failed
List units in failed state. This is equivalent to --state=failed.

--no-wall
Do not send wall message before halt, power-off and 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-whom=
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.

The special value "help" will list the known values and the program
will exit immediately, and the special value "list" will list known
values along with the numerical signal numbers and the program will
exit immediately.

--what=
Select what type of per-unit resources to remove when the clean
command is invoked, see below. Takes one of configuration, state,
cache, logs, runtime to select the type of resource. This option
may be specified more than once, in which case all specified
resource types are removed. Also accepts the special value all as a
shortcut for specifying all five resource types. If this option is
not specified defaults to the combination of cache and runtime,
i.e. the two kinds of resources that are generally considered to be
redundant and can be reconstructed on next invocation.

-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 has crashed.

--message=
When used with halt, poweroff or reboot, 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.

--image=image
Takes a path to a disk image file or block device node. If
specified, all operations are applied to file system in the
indicated disk image. This option is similar to --root=, but
operates on file systems stored in disk images or block devices.
The disk image should either contain just a file system or a set of
file systems within a GPT partition table, following the
Discoverable Partitions Specification[1]. For further information
on supported disk images, see systemd-nspawn(1)'s switch of the
same name.

--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, or 0 to disable journal output. 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, poweroff, or halt command, indicate to
the system's firmware to reboot into the firmware setup interface
for the next boot. Note that this functionality is not available on
all systems.

--boot-loader-menu=timeout
When used with the reboot, poweroff, or halt command, indicate to
the system's boot loader to show the boot loader menu on the
following boot. Takes a time value as parameter — indicating the
menu timeout. Pass zero in order to disable the menu timeout. Note
that not all boot loaders support this functionality.

--boot-loader-entry=ID
When used with the reboot, poweroff, or halt command, indicate to
the system's boot loader to boot into a specific boot loader entry
on the following boot. Takes a boot loader entry identifier as
argument, or "help" in order to list available entries. Note that
not all boot loaders support this functionality.

--reboot-argument=
This switch is used with reboot. 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.

--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.

--timestamp=
Change the format of printed timestamps. The following values may
be used:

pretty (this is the default)
"Day YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS TZ"

unix
"@seconds-since-the-epoch"

us, µs
"Day YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.UUUUUU TZ"

utc
"Day YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS UTC"

us+utc, µs+utc
"Day YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.UUUUUU UTC"

--mkdir
When used with bind, creates the destination file or directory
before applying the bind mount. Note that even though the name of
this option suggests that it is suitable only for directories, this
option also creates the destination file node to mount over if the
object to mount is not a directory, but a regular file, device
node, socket or FIFO.

--marked
Only allowed with reload-or-restart. Enqueues restart jobs for all
units that have the "needs-restart" mark, and reload jobs for units
that have the "needs-reload" mark. When a unit marked for reload
does not support reload, restart will be queued. Those properties
can be set using set-property Markers=....

Unless --no-block is used, systemctl will wait for the queued jobs
to finish.

--read-only
When used with bind, creates a read-only bind mount.

-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 port ssh is listening on, separated by
":", and then 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. Put IPv6 addresses
in brackets.

-M, --machine=
Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to
connect to, optionally prefixed by a user name to connect as and a
separating "@" character. If the special string ".host" is used in
place of the container name, a connection to the local system is
made (which is useful to connect to a specific user's user bus:
"--user --machine=lennart@.host"). If the "@" syntax is not used,
the connection is made as root user. If the "@" syntax is used
either the left hand side or the right hand side may be omitted
(but not both) in which case the local user name and ".host" are
implied.

--no-pager
Do not pipe output into a pager.

--legend=BOOL
Enable or disable printing of the legend, i.e. column headers and
the footer with hints. The legend is printed by default, unless
disabled with --quiet or similar.

-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.

--version
Print a short version string and exit.

EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

systemctl uses the return codes defined by LSB, as defined in LSB
3.0.0[2].

Table 3. LSB return codes
┌──────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│Value │ Description in LSB │ Use in systemd │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│0 │ "program is running │ unit is active │
│ │ or service is OK" │ │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│1 │ "program is dead │ unit not failed │
│ │ and /var/run pid │ (used by is-failed) │
│ │ file exists" │ │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│2 │ "program is dead │ unused │
│ │ and /var/lock lock │ │
│ │ file exists" │ │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│3 │ "program is not │ unit is not active │
│ │ running" │ │
├──────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│4 │ "program or service │ no such unit │
│ │ status is unknown" │ │
└──────┴─────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

The mapping of LSB service states to systemd unit states is imperfect,
so it is better to not rely on those return values but to look for
specific unit states and substates instead.

ENVIRONMENT
$SYSTEMD_EDITOR
Editor to use when editing units; overrides $EDITOR and $VISUAL. If
neither $SYSTEMD_EDITOR nor $EDITOR nor $VISUAL are present or if
it is set to an empty string or if their execution failed,
systemctl will try to execute well known editors in this order:
editor(1), nano(1), vim(1), vi(1).

$SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL
The maximum log level of emitted messages (messages with a higher
log level, i.e. less important ones, will be suppressed). Either
one of (in order of decreasing importance) emerg, alert, crit, err,
warning, notice, info, debug, or an integer in the range 0...7. See
syslog(3) for more information.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_COLOR
A boolean. If true, messages written to the tty will be colored
according to priority.

This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
the terminal, because journalctl(1) and other tools that display
logs will color messages based on the log level on their own.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_TIME
A boolean. If true, console log messages will be prefixed with a
timestamp.

This setting is only useful when messages are written directly to
the terminal or a file, because journalctl(1) and other tools that
display logs will attach timestamps based on the entry metadata on
their own.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_LOCATION
A boolean. If true, messages will be prefixed with a filename and
line number in the source code where the message originates.

Note that the log location is often attached as metadata to journal
entries anyway. Including it directly in the message text can
nevertheless be convenient when debugging programs.

$SYSTEMD_LOG_TARGET
The destination for log messages. One of console (log to the
attached tty), console-prefixed (log to the attached tty but with
prefixes encoding the log level and "facility", see syslog(3), kmsg
(log to the kernel circular log buffer), journal (log to the
journal), journal-or-kmsg (log to the journal if available, and to
kmsg otherwise), auto (determine the appropriate log target
automatically, the default), null (disable log output).

$SYSTEMD_PAGER
Pager to use when --no-pager is not given; overrides $PAGER. If
neither $SYSTEMD_PAGER nor $PAGER are set, a set of well-known
pager implementations are tried in turn, including less(1) and
more(1), until one is found. If no pager implementation is
discovered no pager is invoked. Setting this environment variable
to an empty string or the value "cat" is equivalent to passing
--no-pager.

Note: if $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set, $SYSTEMD_PAGER (as well
as $PAGER) will be silently ignored.

$SYSTEMD_LESS
Override the options passed to less (by default "FRSXMK").

Users might want to change two options in particular:

K
This option instructs the pager to exit immediately when Ctrl+C
is pressed. To allow less to handle Ctrl+C itself to switch
back to the pager command prompt, unset this option.

If the value of $SYSTEMD_LESS does not include "K", and the
pager that is invoked is less, Ctrl+C will be ignored by the
executable, and needs to be handled by the pager.

X
This option instructs the pager to not send termcap
initialization and deinitialization strings to the terminal. It
is set by default to allow command output to remain visible in
the terminal even after the pager exits. Nevertheless, this
prevents some pager functionality from working, in particular
paged output cannot be scrolled with the mouse.

Note that setting the regular $LESS environment variable has no
effect for less invocations by systemd tools.

See less(1) for more discussion.

$SYSTEMD_LESSCHARSET
Override the charset passed to less (by default "utf-8", if the
invoking terminal is determined to be UTF-8 compatible).

Note that setting the regular $LESSCHARSET environment variable has
no effect for less invocations by systemd tools.

$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE
Takes a boolean argument. When true, the "secure" mode of the pager
is enabled; if false, disabled. If $SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set
at all, secure mode is enabled if the effective UID is not the same
as the owner of the login session, see geteuid(2) and
sd_pid_get_owner_uid(3). In secure mode, LESSSECURE=1 will be set
when invoking the pager, and the pager shall disable commands that
open or create new files or start new subprocesses. When
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE is not set at all, pagers which are not known
to implement secure mode will not be used. (Currently only less(1)
implements secure mode.)

Note: when commands are invoked with elevated privileges, for
example under sudo(8) or pkexec(1), care must be taken to ensure
that unintended interactive features are not enabled. "Secure" mode
for the pager may be enabled automatically as describe above.
Setting SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE=0 or not removing it from the inherited
environment allows the user to invoke arbitrary commands. Note that
if the $SYSTEMD_PAGER or $PAGER variables are to be honoured,
$SYSTEMD_PAGERSECURE must be set too. It might be reasonable to
completely disable the pager using --no-pager instead.

$SYSTEMD_COLORS
Takes a boolean argument. When true, systemd and related utilities
will use colors in their output, otherwise the output will be
monochrome. Additionally, the variable can take one of the
following special values: "16", "256" to restrict the use of colors
to the base 16 or 256 ANSI colors, respectively. This can be
specified to override the automatic decision based on $TERM and
what the console is connected to.

$SYSTEMD_URLIFY
The value must be a boolean. Controls whether clickable links
should be generated in the output for terminal emulators supporting
this. This can be specified to override the decision that systemd
makes based on $TERM and other conditions.

SEE ALSO
systemd(1), journalctl(1), loginctl(1), machinectl(1), systemd.unit(5),
systemd.resource-control(5), systemd.special(7), wall(1),
systemd.preset(5), systemd.generator(7), glob(7)

NOTES
1. Discoverable Partitions Specification
https://systemd.io/DISCOVERABLE_PARTITIONS

2. LSB 3.0.0
http://refspecs.linuxbase.org/LSB_3.0.0/LSB-PDA/LSB-PDA/iniscrptact.html

systemd 252 SYSTEMCTL(1)

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