List known units (subject to limitations specified with -t). If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only units matching one of them are shown.

This is the default command.

List socket units ordered by listening address. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only socket units matching one of them are shown. Produces output similar to

LISTEN           UNIT                        ACTIVATES
/dev/initctl     systemd-initctl.socket      systemd-initctl.service
...
[::]:22          sshd.socket                 sshd.service
kobject-uevent 1 systemd-udevd-kernel.socket systemd-udevd.service

5 sockets listed.

Note: because the addresses might contains spaces, this output is not suitable for programmatic consumption.

See also the options --show-types, --all, and --state=.

List timer units ordered by the time they elapse next. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only units matching one of them are shown.

See also the options --all and --state=.

Start (activate) one or more units specified on the command line.

Note that glob patterns operate on a list of currently loaded units. Units which are not active and are not in a failed state usually are not loaded, and would not be matched by any pattern. In addition, in case of instantiated units, systemd is often unaware of the instance name until the instance has been started. Therefore, using glob patterns with start has limited usefulness.

Stop (deactivate) one or more units specified on the command line.

Asks all units listed on the command line to reload their configuration. Note that this will reload the service-specific configuration, not the unit configuration file of systemd. If you want systemd to reload the configuration file of a unit, use the daemon-reload command. In other words: for the example case of Apache, this will reload Apache's httpd.conf in the web server, not the apache.service systemd unit file.

This command should not be confused with the daemon-reload command.

Restart one or more units specified on the command line. If the units are not running yet, they will be started.

Restart one or more units specified on the command line if the units are running. This does nothing if units are not running. Note that, for compatibility with Red Hat init scripts, condrestart is equivalent to this command.

Reload one or more units if they support it. If not, restart them instead. If the units are not running yet, they will be started.

Reload one or more units if they support it. If not, restart them instead. This does nothing if the units are not running. Note that, for compatibility with SysV init scripts, force-reload is equivalent to this command.

Start the unit specified on the command line and its dependencies and stop all others. If a unit name with no extension is given, an extension of ".target" will be assumed.

This is similar to changing the runlevel in a traditional init system. The isolate command will immediately stop processes that are not enabled in the new unit, possibly including the graphical environment or terminal you are currently using.

Note that this is allowed only on units where AllowIsolate= is enabled. See systemd.unit(5) for details.

Send a signal to one or more processes of the unit. Use --kill-who= to select which process to kill. Use --signal= to select the signal to send.

Check whether any of the specified units are active (i.e. running). Returns an exit code 0 if at least one is active, or non-zero otherwise. Unless --quiet is specified, this will also print the current unit state to standard output.

Check whether any of the specified units are in a "failed" state. Returns an exit code 0 if at least one has failed, non-zero otherwise. Unless --quiet is specified, this will also print the current unit state to standard output.

Show terse runtime status information about one or more units, followed by most recent log data from the journal. If no units are specified, show system status. If combined with --all, also show the status of all units (subject to limitations specified with -t). If a PID is passed, show information about the unit the process belongs to.

This function is intended to generate human-readable output. If you are looking for computer-parsable output, use show instead. By default this function only shows 10 lines of output and ellipsizes lines to fit in the terminal window. This can be changes with --lines and --full, see above. In addition, journalctl --unit=NAME or journalctl --user-unit=NAME use a similar filter for messages and might be more convenient.

Show properties of one or more units, jobs, or the manager itself. If no argument is specified, properties of the manager will be shown. If a unit name is specified, properties of the unit is shown, and if a job id is specified, properties of the job is shown. By default, empty properties are suppressed. Use --all to show those too. To select specific properties to show, use --property=. This command is intended to be used whenever computer-parsable output is required. Use status if you are looking for formatted human-readable output.

Show backing files of one or more units. Prints the "fragment" and "drop-ins" (source files) of units. Each file is preceded by a comment which includes the file name.

Set the specified unit properties at runtime where this is supported. This allows changing configuration parameter properties such as resource control settings at runtime. Not all properties may be changed at runtime, but many resource control settings (primarily those in systemd.resource-control(5)) may. The changes are applied instantly, and stored on disk for future boots, unless --runtime is passed, in which case the settings only apply until the next reboot. The syntax of the property assignment follows closely the syntax of assignments in unit files.

Example: systemctl set-property foobar.service CPUShares=777

Note that this command allows changing multiple properties at the same time, which is preferable over setting them individually. Like unit file configuration settings, assigning the empty list to list parameters will reset the list.

Show manual pages for one or more units, if available. If a PID is given, the manual pages for the unit the process belongs to are shown.

Reset the "failed" state of the specified units, or if no unit name is passed, reset the state of all units. When a unit fails in some way (i.e. process exiting with non-zero error code, terminating abnormally or timing out), it will automatically enter the "failed" state and its exit code and status is recorded for introspection by the administrator until the service is restarted or reset with this command.

Shows units required and wanted by the specified unit. This recursively lists units following the Requires=, RequiresOverridable=, Requisite=, RequisiteOverridable=, Wants=, BindsTo= dependencies. If no unit is specified, default.target is implied.

By default, only target units are recursively expanded. When --all is passed, all other units are recursively expanded as well.

Options --reverse, --after, --before may be used to change what types of dependencies are shown.

List installed unit files. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only units whose filename (just the last component of the path) matches one of them are shown.

Enable one or more unit files or unit file instances, as specified on the command line. This will create a number of symlinks as encoded in the "[Install]" sections of the unit files. After the symlinks have been created, the systemd configuration is reloaded (in a way that is equivalent to daemon-reload) to ensure the changes are taken into account immediately. Note that this does not have the effect of also starting any of the units being enabled. If this is desired, a separate start command must be invoked for the unit. Also note that in case of instance enablement, symlinks named the same as instances are created in the install location, however they all point to the same template unit file.

This command will print the actions executed. This output may be suppressed by passing --quiet.

Note that this operation creates only the suggested symlinks for the units. While this command is the recommended way to manipulate the unit configuration directory, the administrator is free to make additional changes manually by placing or removing symlinks in the directory. This is particularly useful to create configurations that deviate from the suggested default installation. In this case, the administrator must make sure to invoke daemon-reload manually as necessary to ensure the changes are taken into account.

Enabling units should not be confused with starting (activating) units, as done by the start command. Enabling and starting units is orthogonal: units may be enabled without being started and started without being enabled. Enabling simply hooks the unit into various suggested places (for example, so that the unit is automatically started on boot or when a particular kind of hardware is plugged in). Starting actually spawns the daemon process (in case of service units), or binds the socket (in case of socket units), and so on.

Depending on whether --system, --user, --runtime, or --global is specified, this enables the unit for the system, for the calling user only, for only this boot of the system, or for all future logins of all users, or only this boot. Note that in the last case, no systemd daemon configuration is reloaded.

Using enable on masked units results in an error.

Disables one or more units. This removes all symlinks to the specified unit files from the unit configuration directory, and hence undoes the changes made by enable. Note however that this removes all symlinks to the unit files (i.e. including manual additions), not just those actually created by enable. This call implicitly reloads the systemd daemon configuration after completing the disabling of the units. Note that this command does not implicitly stop the units that are being disabled. If this is desired, an additional stop command should be executed afterwards.

This command will print the actions executed. This output may be suppressed by passing --quiet.

This command honors --system, --user, --runtime and --global in a similar way as enable.

Reenable one or more unit files, as specified on the command line. This is a combination of disable and enable and is useful to reset the symlinks a unit is enabled with to the defaults configured in the "[Install]" section of the unit file.

Reset one or more unit files, as specified on the command line, to the defaults configured in the preset policy files. This has the same effect as disable or enable, depending how the unit is listed in the preset files.

Use --preset-mode= to control whether units shall be enabled and disabled, or only enabled, or only disabled.

For more information on the preset policy format, see systemd.preset(5). For more information on the concept of presets, please consult the Preset document.

Resets all installed unit files to the defaults configured in the preset policy file (see above).

Use --preset-mode= to control whether units shall be enabled and disabled, or only enabled, or only disabled.

Checks whether any of the specified unit files are enabled (as with enable). Returns an exit code of 0 if at least one is enabled, non-zero otherwise. Prints the current enable status (see table). To suppress this output, use --quiet.

Mask one or more unit files, as specified on the command line. This will link these units to /dev/null, making it impossible to start them. This is a stronger version of disable, since it prohibits all kinds of activation of the unit, including enablement and manual activation. Use this option with care. This honors the --runtime option to only mask temporarily until the next reboot of the system.

Unmask one or more unit files, as specified on the command line. This will undo the effect of mask.

Link a unit file that is not in the unit file search paths into the unit file search path. This requires an absolute path to a unit file. The effect of this can be undone with disable. The effect of this command is that a unit file is available for start and other commands although it is not installed directly in the unit search path.

Adds "Wants=" resp. "Requires=" dependency to the specified TARGET for one or more units.

This command honors --system, --user, --runtime and --global in a similar way as enable.

Edit a drop-in snippet or a whole replacement file if --full is specified, to extend or override the specified unit.

Depending on whether --system (the default), --user, or --global is specified, this creates a drop-in file for each unit either for the system, for the calling user or for all futures logins of all users. Then, the editor (see the "Environment" section below) is invoked on temporary files which will be written to the real location if the editor exits successfully.

If --full is specified, this will copy the original units instead of creating drop-in files.

If --runtime is specified, the changes will be made temporarily in /run and they will be lost on the next reboot.

If the temporary file is empty upon exit the modification of the related unit is canceled

After the units have been edited, systemd configuration is reloaded (in a way that is equivalent to daemon-reload).

Note that this command cannot be used to remotely edit units and that you cannot temporarily edit units which are in /etc since they take precedence over /run.

Return the default target to boot into. This returns the target unit name default.target is aliased (symlinked) to.

Set the default target to boot into. This sets (symlinks) the default.target alias to the given target unit.

List the host and all running local containers with their state. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only containers matching one of them are shown.

List jobs that are in progress. If one or more PATTERNs are specified, only jobs for units matching one of them are shown.

Cancel one or more jobs specified on the command line by their numeric job IDs. If no job ID is specified, cancel all pending jobs.

Create a snapshot. If a snapshot name is specified, the new snapshot will be named after it. If none is specified, an automatic snapshot name is generated. In either case, the snapshot name used is printed to standard output, unless --quiet is specified.

A snapshot refers to a saved state of the systemd manager. It is implemented itself as a unit that is generated dynamically with this command and has dependencies on all units active at the time. At a later time, the user may return to this state by using the isolate command on the snapshot unit.

Snapshots are only useful for saving and restoring which units are running or are stopped, they do not save/restore any other state. Snapshots are dynamic and lost on reboot.

Remove a snapshot previously created with snapshot.

Dump the systemd manager environment block. The environment block will be dumped in straight-forward form suitable for sourcing into a shell script. This environment block will be passed to all processes the manager spawns.

Set one or more systemd manager environment variables, as specified on the command line.

Unset one or more systemd manager environment variables. If only a variable name is specified, it will be removed regardless of its value. If a variable and a value are specified, the variable is only removed if it has the specified value.

Import all, one or more environment variables set on the client into the systemd manager environment block. If no arguments are passed, the entire environment block is imported. Otherwise, a list of one or more environment variable names should be passed, whose client-side values are then imported into the manager's environment block.

Reload systemd manager configuration. This will rerun all generators (see systemd.generator(7)), reload all unit files, and recreate the entire dependency tree. While the daemon is being reloaded, all sockets systemd listens on behalf of user configuration will stay accessible.

This command should not be confused with the reload command.

Reexecute the systemd manager. This will serialize the manager state, reexecute the process and deserialize the state again. This command is of little use except for debugging and package upgrades. Sometimes, it might be helpful as a heavy-weight daemon-reload. While the daemon is being reexecuted, all sockets systemd listening on behalf of user configuration will stay accessible.

Checks whether the system is operational. This returns success when the system is fully up and running, meaning not in startup, shutdown or maintenance mode. Failure is returned otherwise. In addition, the current state is printed in a short string to standard output, see table below. Use --quiet to suppress this output.

Enter default mode. This is mostly equivalent to isolate default.target.

Enter rescue mode. This is mostly equivalent to isolate rescue.target, but also prints a wall message to all users.

Enter emergency mode. This is mostly equivalent to isolate emergency.target, but also prints a wall message to all users.

Shut down and halt the system. This is mostly equivalent to start halt.target --irreversible, but also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force, shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed by the system halt. If --force is specified twice, the operation is immediately executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file systems. This may result in data loss.

Shut down and power-off the system. This is mostly equivalent to start poweroff.target --irreversible, but also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force, shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed by the powering off. If --force is specified twice, the operation is immediately executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file systems. This may result in data loss.

Shut down and reboot the system. This is mostly equivalent to start reboot.target --irreversible, but also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force, shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed by the reboot. If --force is specified twice, the operation is immediately executed without terminating any processes or unmounting any file systems. This may result in data loss.

If the optional argument arg is given, it will be passed as the optional argument to the reboot(2) system call. The value is architecture and firmware specific. As an example, "recovery" might be used to trigger system recovery, and "fota" might be used to trigger a “firmware over the air” update.

Shut down and reboot the system via kexec. This is mostly equivalent to start kexec.target --irreversible, but also prints a wall message to all users. If combined with --force, shutdown of all running services is skipped, however all processes are killed and all file systems are unmounted or mounted read-only, immediately followed by the reboot.

Ask the systemd manager to quit. This is only supported for user service managers (i.e. in conjunction with the --user option) and will fail otherwise.

Switches to a different root directory and executes a new system manager process below it. This is intended for usage in initial RAM disks ("initrd"), and will transition from the initrd's system manager process (a.k.a "init" process) to the main system manager process. This call takes two arguments: the directory that is to become the new root directory, and the path to the new system manager binary below it to execute as PID 1. If the latter is omitted or the empty string, a systemd binary will automatically be searched for and used as init. If the system manager path is omitted or equal to the empty string, the state of the initrd's system manager process is passed to the main system manager, which allows later introspection of the state of the services involved in the initrd boot.

Suspend the system. This will trigger activation of the special suspend.target target.

Hibernate the system. This will trigger activation of the special hibernate.target target.

Hibernate and suspend the system. This will trigger activation of the special hybrid-sleep.target target.