systemctl-is-system-running

systemctl is-system-running [OPTIONS]

systemctl is-system-running checks the overall operational state of the system. It reports whether the system has finished booting and whether all units are functioning properly.Possible states: initializing, starting, running, degraded, maintenance, stopping, offline, unknown. "Running" indicates successful boot with all units healthy.

-q, --quiet

Suppress output, return only exit code

Wait until boot process is completed before returning

initializing — Early boot, before basic.target reached.starting — Late boot, before all services have finished.running — System fully operational, all units healthy.degraded — System is running but at least one unit has failed.maintenance — Rescue/emergency mode.stopping — Shutdown in progress.offline — System not booted under systemd (e.g., chroot).unknown — State could not be determined.

Returns 0 only when the system reports `running`. Any other state returns non-zero, so `systemctl is-system-running -q` is a convenient health-check primitive in scripts.

The `--wait` option is useful in scripts that need to wait for complete system startup before proceeding. "Degraded" state indicates at least one unit failed.

The is-system-running subcommand provides a high-level health check for the entire system, enabling automated monitoring and boot-completion detection.

systemctl-status(1), systemctl(1)