systemctl-is-active

Check if unit is active

$ systemctl is-active [unit]

$ systemctl is-active [unit1 unit2 ...]

$ systemctl is-active [unit] -q

$ systemctl is-active [unit] --user

systemctl is-active [OPTIONS] PATTERN...

systemctl is-active checks whether one or more units are currently active (running). It prints the active state and returns exit code 0 if at least one unit is active.
Possible states include: active, inactive, activating, deactivating, failed. For multiple units, each state is printed on a separate line.

-q, --quiet

Suppress output, return only exit code

Check user units

Check system units (default)

Returns 0 if at least one unit is active, non-zero otherwise. This makes it useful in shell scripts for conditional logic based on service state.

Only checks current runtime state, not enablement. A unit can be enabled but not active, or active but not enabled. Use `is-enabled` to check the boot configuration.

The is-active subcommand provides a scriptable way to query service state, replacing parsing of `systemctl status` output.

systemctl-is-enabled(1), systemctl-status(1), systemctl(1)