systemctl

Control systemd services and system

TLDR

Show all running services

$ systemctl status

List failed units

$ systemctl --failed

Start/Stop/Restart a service

$ systemctl start|stop|restart unit

Enable/Disable a service at boot

$ systemctl enable|disable unit

Reload systemd configuration

$ systemctl daemon-reload

Check if a unit is active/enabled/failed

$ systemctl is-active|is-enabled|is-failed unit

List all service units by state

$ systemctl list-units -t service --state running

Show contents of a unit file

$ systemctl cat unit

SYNOPSIS

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

systemctl controls the systemd system and service manager. It can be used to introspect and control the state of the systemd system, manage services, check unit dependencies, and perform system operations like reboot or shutdown.

PARAMETERS

-t, --type=TYPE

Filter by unit type (service, socket, target, mount, timer, etc.)

--state=STATE

Filter by unit state (active, inactive, failed, running, etc.)

-a, --all

Show all units including inactive ones

--user

Manage user services instead of system services

--no-block

Return immediately without waiting for operation to complete

--now

Combine enable/disable with start/stop

--force

Override safety checks or symlink conflicts

-q, --quiet

Suppress output

-n, --lines=NUM

Number of journal lines to show with status

--no-pager

Do not pipe output into a pager

-o, --output=FORMAT

Control journal output format (short, verbose, json, etc.)

COMMON COMMANDS

list-units: List active or specified unitslist-unit-files: Show installed unit files and their enablement statestatus: Show runtime status and recent logsstart/stop: Start or stop unitsrestart: Stop then start unitsreload: Reload unit configuration without stoppingenable/disable: Enable or disable unit activation at bootmask/unmask: Completely disable or re-enable a unitedit: Edit unit file with drop-in snippetscat: Show contents of unit fileshow: Display unit properties in machine-readable formatdaemon-reload: Reload systemd configuration and unit filesis-active/is-enabled/is-failed: Check unit statekill: Send signal to unit processespoweroff/reboot/halt: System power commandssuspend/hibernate: Enter sleep states

CAVEATS

Some commands require root privileges. The --user flag manages per-user services in ~/.config/systemd/user/. Use daemon-reload after modifying unit files. Masked units cannot be started even manually.

HISTORY

systemctl is part of systemd, introduced in 2010 by Lennart Poettering. It replaced traditional SysV init scripts and service management tools like service and chkconfig.