Systemd Cheat Sheet

Service files

service files are located at /etc/systemd/system services are often time applications ran at statrtup.

Create a service file

Instructions for creating a service file. Typically I create a start.sh script for each application so that all services will have a similar ExecStart line. If using start.sh be sure to use chmod +x start.sh to make the startup script executable.

sudo touch /etc/systemd/system/<service>.service to create your service file
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/<service>.service to edit

[Unit]
Description=Pixoo Discord Bot                                  # Name of your service
Wants=network.target                                           # Indicates service needs to be stopped before network shutdown
After=syslog.target network-online.target                      # Start service after network is online

[Service]
Type=simple                                                    # The default value. The process started with ExecStart is the main process of the service.
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/<user>/pixoobot/start.sh             # Replace with the actual path to your JAR file
user=root                                                      # User to execute application under
Restart=on-failure                                             # Restart application if it dies
RestartSec=10                                                  # Duration to wait for restart on failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target                                     # means that the custom service will start when systemd loads

systemctl daemon-reload loads service file changes
systemctl restart <service>
journalctl -fu <service> to watch logs and verify started

usefull systemctl commands

List running services systemctl

Start a service systemctl start <service>

Stop a service systemctl stop <service>

Restart a service systemctl restart <service>

Show status of a service systemctl status <service>

Enable service to start on boot systemctl enable <service>

Disable service start on boot systemctl disable <service>

Check if service is enabled systemctl is-enabled <service>