systemctl

Show all running services

$ systemctl status

$ systemctl --failed

$ systemctl start|stop|restart unit

$ systemctl enable|disable unit

$ systemctl daemon-reload

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

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

$ systemctl cat unit

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.

-t, --type=TYPE

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

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

Show all units including inactive ones

Manage user services instead of system services

Return immediately without waiting for operation to complete

Combine enable/disable with start/stop

Override safety checks or symlink conflicts

Suppress output

Number of journal lines to show with status

Do not pipe output into a pager

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

list-units: List active or specified units
list-unit-files: Show installed unit files and their enablement state
status: Show runtime status and recent logs
start/stop: Start or stop units
restart: Stop then start units
reload: Reload unit configuration without stopping
enable/disable: Enable or disable unit activation at boot
mask/unmask: Completely disable or re-enable a unit
edit: Edit unit file with drop-in snippets
cat: Show contents of unit file
show: Display unit properties in machine-readable format
daemon-reload: Reload systemd configuration and unit files
is-active/is-enabled/is-failed: Check unit state
kill: Send signal to unit processes
poweroff/reboot/halt: System power commands
suspend/hibernate: Enter sleep states

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.

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.

systemd(1), journalctl(1), systemd.unit(5), systemd.service(5)