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Packages, services, and logs / Stage 5 of 13

Systemd services: state and startup

Not running Starting usually ~20 s
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Step 6 of 6 · summary · 2 min

Summary

  • A service has two independent states: active means it runs now, enabled means it starts at boot. systemctl is-active and systemctl is-enabled print them, and systemctl status shows both.
  • start, stop and restart change running now, enable and disable change autostart, and the --now option changes both states at once.
  • Autostart is a link to the unit in multi-user.target.wants: enable creates it and disable removes it.
  • At the start of the lesson cron's autostart was off. The engineer's morning start got the service running but did not bring back the boot link, so is-enabled printed disabled.

Found an inaccuracy? Report an error in the lesson

Service doesn't come up after reboot

Reference for this lesson

Articles

  • Symbolic and hard links — The difference between a symlink and a hard link, when to use which, broken links.
  • Service — A program that runs in the background and performs a function for the system or network. Under systemd, a service is described by a .service unit and managed with systemctl.
  • systemd — System and service manager that manages units and their dependencies.
  • systemctl — managing systemd services — Command for managing systemd units and inspecting their state.
  • Cron — the task scheduler — Running tasks on a schedule: crontab syntax, classic cron and modern systemd timers.
Ubuntu 24.04
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