systemd.servicesystemdDeveloperLennartPoetteringlennart@poettering.netsystemd.service5systemd.serviceService unit configurationservice.serviceDescriptionA unit configuration file whose name ends in
.service encodes information
about a process controlled and supervised by
systemd.This man page lists the configuration options
specific to this unit type. See
systemd.unit5
for the common options of all unit configuration
files. The common configuration items are configured
in the generic [Unit] and
[Install] sections. The service
specific configuration options are configured in the
[Service] section.Additional options are listed in
systemd.exec5,
which define the execution environment the commands
are executed in, and in
systemd.kill5,
which define the way the processes of the service are
terminated, and in
systemd.resource-control5,
which configure resource control settings for the
processes of the service.Unless DefaultDependencies=
is set to , service units will
implicitly have dependencies of type
Requires= and
After= on
basic.target as well as
dependencies of type Conflicts= and
Before= on
shutdown.target. These ensure
that normal service units pull in basic system
initialization, and are terminated cleanly prior to
system shutdown. Only services involved with early
boot or late system shutdown should disable this
option.If a service is requested under a certain name
but no unit configuration file is found, systemd looks
for a SysV init script by the same name (with the
.service suffix removed) and
dynamically creates a service unit from that
script. This is useful for compatibility with
SysV. Note that this compatibility is quite
comprehensive but not 100%. For details about the
incompatibilities, see the Incompatibilities
with SysV document.
OptionsService files must include a
[Service] section, which carries
information about the service and the process it
supervises. A number of options that may be used in
this section are shared with other unit types. These
options are documented in
systemd.exec5
and
systemd.kill5. The
options specific to the [Service]
section of service units are the following:Type=Configures the process
start-up type for this service
unit. One of ,
,
,
,
or
.If set to
(the default
value if neither
Type= nor
BusName= are
specified), it is expected that the
process configured with
ExecStart= is the
main process of the service. In this
mode, if the process offers
functionality to other processes on
the system, its communication channels
should be installed before the daemon
is started up (e.g. sockets set up by
systemd, via socket activation), as
systemd will immediately proceed
starting follow-up units.If set to
, it is
expected that the process configured
with ExecStart=
will call fork()
as part of its start-up. The parent process is
expected to exit when start-up is
complete and all communication
channels are set up. The child continues
to run as the main daemon
process. This is the behavior of
traditional UNIX daemons. If this
setting is used, it is recommended to
also use the
PIDFile= option, so
that systemd can identify the main
process of the daemon. systemd will
proceed with starting follow-up units
as soon as the parent process
exits.Behavior of
is similar
to ; however,
it is expected that the process has to
exit before systemd starts follow-up
units. RemainAfterExit=
is particularly useful for this type
of service.Behavior of
is similar to
; however, it is
expected that the daemon acquires a
name on the D-Bus bus, as configured
by
BusName=. systemd
will proceed with starting follow-up
units after the D-Bus bus name has been
acquired. Service units with this
option configured implicitly gain
dependencies on the
dbus.socket
unit. This type is the default if
BusName= is
specified.Behavior of
is similar to
; however, it is
expected that the daemon sends a
notification message via
sd_notify3
or an equivalent call when it has finished
starting up. systemd will proceed with
starting follow-up units after this
notification message has been sent. If
this option is used,
NotifyAccess= (see
below) should be set to open access to
the notification socket provided by
systemd. If
NotifyAccess= is
not set, it will be implicitly set to
. Note that
currently
Type=
will not work if used in combination with
PrivateNetwork=.Behavior of
is very similar
to ; however,
actual execution of the service
binary is delayed until all jobs are
dispatched. This may be used to avoid
interleaving of output of shell
services with the status output on the
console.RemainAfterExit=Takes a boolean value
that specifies whether the service
shall be considered active even when
all its processes exited. Defaults to
.GuessMainPID=Takes a boolean value
that specifies whether systemd should
try to guess the main PID of a service
if it cannot be determined
reliably. This option is ignored
unless
is set and
is unset because for the other types
or with an explicitly configured PID
file, the main PID is always known. The
guessing algorithm might come to
incorrect conclusions if a daemon
consists of more than one process. If
the main PID cannot be determined,
failure detection and automatic
restarting of a service will not work
reliably. Defaults to
.PIDFile=Takes an absolute file
name pointing to the PID file of this
daemon. Use of this option is
recommended for services where
Type= is set to
. systemd will
read the PID of the main process of
the daemon after start-up of the
service. systemd will not write to the
file configured here.BusName=Takes a D-Bus bus
name that this service is reachable
as. This option is mandatory for
services where
Type= is set to
, but its use
is otherwise recommended if the process
takes a name on the D-Bus bus.ExecStart=Commands with their
arguments that are executed when this
service is started. For each of the
specified commands, the first argument
must be an absolute and literal path
to an executable.When Type is
not , only one
command may be given. When
Type=oneshot is
used, more than one command may be
specified. Multiple command lines may
be concatenated in a single directive
by separating them with semicolons
(these semicolons must be passed as
separate words). Alternatively, this
directive may be specified more than
once with the same effect.
Lone semicolons may be escaped as
\;. If the empty
string is assigned to this option, the
list of commands to start is reset,
prior assignments of this option will
have no effect.Each command line is split on
whitespace, with the first item being
the command to execute, and the
subsequent items being the arguments.
Double quotes ("...") and single
quotes ('...') may be used, in which
case everything until the next
matching quote becomes part of the
same argument. Quotes themselves are
removed after parsing. In addition, a
trailing backslash
(\) may be used to
merge lines. This syntax is intended
to be very similar to shell syntax,
but only the meta-characters and
expansions described in the following
paragraphs are understood.
Specifically, redirection using
<,
<<,
>, and
>>, pipes
using |, and
running programs in the background
using &
and other elements of shell
syntax are not supported.
If more than one command is
specified, the commands are invoked
sequentially in the order they appear
in the unit file. If one of the
commands fails (and is not prefixed
with -), other lines
are not executed, and the unit is
considered failed.Unless
Type=forking is
set, the process started via this
command line will be considered the
main process of the daemon.The command line accepts
% specifiers as
described in
systemd.unit5.
Note that the first argument of the
command line (i.e. the program to
execute) may not include
specifiers.Basic environment variable
substitution is supported. Use
${FOO} as part of a
word, or as a word of its own, on the
command line, in which case it will be
replaced by the value of the
environment variable including all
whitespace it contains, resulting in a
single argument. Use
$FOO as a separate
word on the command line, in which
case it will be replaced by the value
of the environment variable split at
whitespace, resulting in zero or more
arguments. To pass a literal dollar
sign, use $$.
Variables whose value is not known at
expansion time are treated as empty
strings. Note that the first argument
(i.e. the program to execute) may not
be a variable.Variables to be used in this
fashion may be defined through
Environment= and
EnvironmentFile=.
In addition, variables listed in the
section "Environment variables in
spawned processes" in
systemd.exec5,
which are considered "static
configuration", may be used (this includes
e.g. $USER, but not
$TERM).Optionally, if the absolute file
name is prefixed with
@, the second token
will be passed as
argv[0] to the
executed process, followed by the
further arguments specified. If the
absolute filename is prefixed with
-, an exit code of
the command normally considered a
failure (i.e. non-zero exit status or
abnormal exit due to signal) is ignored
and considered success. If both
- and
@ are used, they
can appear in either order.Note that this setting does not
directly support shell command
lines. If shell command lines are to
be used, they need to be passed
explicitly to a shell implementation
of some kind. Example:ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'dmesg | tac'Example:ExecStart=/bin/echo one ; /bin/echo "two two"This will execute
/bin/echo two
times, each time with one argument:
one and
two two,
respectively. Because two commands are
specified,
Type=oneshot must
be used.Example:ExecStart=/bin/echo / >/dev/null & \; \
/bin/lsThis will execute
/bin/echo with five
arguments: /,
>/dev/null,
&,
;, and
/bin/ls.Example:Environment="ONE=one" 'TWO=two two'
ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO ${TWO}This will execute
/bin/echo with four
arguments: one,
two,
two, and
two two.ExecStartPre=ExecStartPost=Additional commands
that are executed before or after
the command in
ExecStart=, respectively.
Syntax is the same as for
ExecStart=, except
that multiple command lines are allowed
and the commands are executed one
after the other, serially.If any of those commands (not
prefixed with -)
fail, the rest are not executed and
the unit is considered failed.ExecReload=Commands to execute to
trigger a configuration reload in the
service. This argument takes multiple
command lines, following the same
scheme as described for
ExecStart=
above. Use of this setting is
optional. Specifier and environment
variable substitution is supported
here following the same scheme as for
ExecStart=.One additional, special
environment variable is set: if known,
$MAINPID is set to
the main process of the daemon, and
may be used for command lines like the
following:/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPIDExecStop=Commands to execute to
stop the service started via
ExecStart=. This
argument takes multiple command lines,
following the same scheme as described
for ExecStart=
above. Use of this setting is
optional. After the commands configured
in this option are run, all processes
remaining for a service are
terminated according to the
KillMode= setting
(see
systemd.kill5). If
this option is not specified, the
process is terminated immediately when
service stop is requested. Specifier
and environment variable substitution
is supported (including
$MAINPID, see
above).ExecStopPost=Additional commands
that are executed after the service
was stopped. This includes cases where
the commands configured in
ExecStop= were used,
where the service does not have any
ExecStop= defined, or
where the service exited unexpectedly. This
argument takes multiple command lines,
following the same scheme as described
for ExecStart. Use
of these settings is
optional. Specifier and environment
variable substitution is
supported.RestartSec=Configures the time to
sleep before restarting a service (as
configured with
Restart=). Takes a
unit-less value in seconds, or a time
span value such as "5min
20s". Defaults to
100ms.TimeoutStartSec=Configures the time to
wait for start-up. If a
daemon service does not signal
start-up completion within the
configured time, the service will be
considered failed and will be shut
down again.
Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a
time span value such as "5min
20s". Pass 0 to
disable the timeout logic. Defaults to
TimeoutStartSec= from
the manager configuration file, except
when Type=oneshot is
used, in which case the timeout
is disabled by default.
TimeoutStopSec=Configures the time to
wait for stop. If a service is asked
to stop, but does not terminate in the
specified time, it will be terminated
forcibly via SIGTERM,
and after another timeout of equal duration
with SIGKILL (see
KillMode=
in systemd.kill5).
Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a
time span value such as "5min
20s". Pass 0 to disable
the timeout logic. Defaults to
TimeoutStartSec= from the
manager configuration file.
TimeoutSec=A shorthand for configuring
both TimeoutStartSec=
and TimeoutStopSec=
to the specified value.
WatchdogSec=Configures the
watchdog timeout for a service. The
watchdog is activated when the start-up is
completed. The service must call
sd_notify3
regularly with WATCHDOG=1
(i.e. the "keep-alive ping"). If the time
between two such calls is larger than
the configured time, then the service
is placed in a failed state. By
setting Restart= to
or
, the service
will be automatically restarted. The
time configured here will be passed to
the executed service process in the
WATCHDOG_USEC=
environment variable. This allows
daemons to automatically enable the
keep-alive pinging logic if watchdog
support is enabled for the service. If
this option is used,
NotifyAccess= (see
below) should be set to open access to
the notification socket provided by
systemd. If
NotifyAccess= is
not set, it will be implicitly set to
. Defaults to 0,
which disables this
feature.Restart=Configures whether the
service shall be restarted when the
service process exits, is killed,
or a timeout is reached. The service
process may be the main service
process, but it may also be one of the
processes specified with
ExecStartPre=,
ExecStartPost=,
ExecStopPre=,
ExecStopPost=, or
ExecReload=.
When the death of the process is a
result of systemd operation (e.g. service
stop or restart), the service will not be
restarted. Timeouts include missing
the watchdog "keep-alive ping"
deadline and a service start, reload,
and stop operation timeouts.Takes one of
,
,
,
,
, or
. If set to
(the default), the
service will not be restarted. If set to
, it will be
restarted only when the service process
exits cleanly.
In this context, a clean exit means
an exit code of 0, or one of the signals
SIGHUP,
SIGINT,
SIGTERM,
or SIGPIPE, and
additionally, exit statuses and signals
specified in SuccessExitStatus=.
If set to ,
the service will be restarted when the
process exits with a non-zero exit code,
is terminated by a signal (including on
core dump), when an operation (such as
service reload) times out, and when the
configured watchdog timeout is triggered.
If set to
, the service
will be restarted only if the service
process exits due to an uncaught
signal not specified as a clean exit
status.
If set to
, the service
will be restarted only if the watchdog
timeout for the service expires.
If set to
, the service
will be restarted regardless of whether
it exited cleanly or not, got
terminated abnormally by a signal, or
hit a timeout.In addition to the above settings,
the service will not be restarted if the
exit code or signal is specified in
RestartPreventExitStatus=
(see below).SuccessExitStatus=Takes a list of exit
status definitions that when returned
by the main service process will be
considered successful termination, in
addition to the normal successful exit
code 0 and the signals SIGHUP, SIGINT,
SIGTERM, and SIGPIPE. Exit status
definitions can either be numeric exit
codes or termination signal names,
separated by spaces. Signals will only
be considered if the service does not implement
a signal handler and exits as a direct result
of receiving the signal. For example:
SuccessExitStatus=1 2 8 SIGKILL
ensures that exit codes 1, 2, 8 and
the termination signal
SIGKILL are
considered clean service terminations.
Note that if a process has a
signal handler installed and exits by
calling
_exit2
in response to a signal, the
information about the signal is lost.
Programs should instead perform cleanup and kill themselves with the same signal instead. See
Proper handling of SIGINT/SIGQUIT — How to be a proper program.This option may appear more than once
in which case the list of successful
exit statuses is merged. If the empty
string is assigned to this option, the
list is reset, all prior assignments
of this option will have no
effect.RestartPreventExitStatus=Takes a list of exit
status definitions that when returned
by the main service process will
prevent automatic service restarts,
regardless of the restart setting
configured with
Restart=. Exit
status definitions can either be
numeric exit codes or termination
signal names, and are separated by
spaces. Defaults to the empty list, so
that, by default, no exit status is
excluded from the configured restart
logic. Example:
RestartPreventExitStatus=1 6
SIGABRT, ensures that exit
codes 1 and 6 and the termination
signal SIGABRT will
not result in automatic service
restarting. This
option may appear more than once, in
which case the list of restart-preventing
statuses is merged. If the empty
string is assigned to this option, the
list is reset and all prior assignments
of this option will have no
effect.PermissionsStartOnly=Takes a boolean
argument. If true, the permission-related
execution options, as
configured with
User= and similar
options (see
systemd.exec5
for more information), are only applied
to the process started with
ExecStart=, and not
to the various other
ExecStartPre=,
ExecStartPost=,
ExecReload=,
ExecStop=, and
ExecStopPost=
commands. If false, the setting is
applied to all configured commands the
same way. Defaults to
false.RootDirectoryStartOnly=Takes a boolean
argument. If true, the root directory,
as configured with the
RootDirectory=
option (see
systemd.exec5
for more information), is only applied
to the process started with
ExecStart=, and not
to the various other
ExecStartPre=,
ExecStartPost=,
ExecReload=,
ExecStop=, and
ExecStopPost=
commands. If false, the setting is
applied to all configured commands the
same way. Defaults to
false.NonBlocking=Set the
O_NONBLOCK flag
for all file descriptors passed via
socket-based activation. If true, all
file descriptors >= 3 (i.e. all except
stdin, stdout, and stderr) will have
the O_NONBLOCK flag
set and hence are in
non-blocking mode. This option is only
useful in conjunction with a socket
unit, as described in
systemd.socket5. Defaults
to false.NotifyAccess=Controls access to the
service status notification socket, as
accessible via the
sd_notify3
call. Takes one of
(the default),
or
. If
, no daemon status
updates are accepted from the service
processes, all status update messages
are ignored. If ,
only service updates sent from the
main process of the service are
accepted. If , all
services updates from all members of
the service's control group are
accepted. This option should be set to
open access to the notification socket
when using
Type=notify or
WatchdogSec= (see
above). If those options are used but
NotifyAccess= is not
configured, it will be implicitly set
to
.Sockets=Specifies the name of
the socket units this service shall
inherit the sockets from when the
service is started. Normally it
should not be necessary to use this
setting as all sockets whose unit
shares the same name as the service
(ignoring the different suffix of course)
are passed to the spawned
process.Note that the same socket may be
passed to multiple processes at the
same time. Also note that a different
service may be activated on incoming
traffic than that which inherits the
sockets. Or in other words: the
Service= setting of
.socket units
does not have to match the inverse of
the Sockets=
setting of the
.service it
refers to.This option may appear more than
once, in which case the list of socket
units is merged. If the empty string
is assigned to this option, the list of
sockets is reset, and all prior uses of
this setting will have no
effect.StartLimitInterval=StartLimitBurst=Configure service
start rate limiting. By default,
services which are started more
than 5 times within 10 seconds are not
permitted to start any more times
until the 10 second interval ends. With
these two options, this rate limiting
may be modified. Use
StartLimitInterval=
to configure the checking interval (defaults to
DefaultStartLimitInterval= in
manager configuration file, set to 0 to disable
any kind of rate limiting). Use
StartLimitBurst= to
configure how many starts per interval
are allowed (defaults to
DefaultStartLimitBurst= in
manager configuration file). These
configuration options are particularly
useful in conjunction with
Restart=; however,
they apply to all kinds of starts
(including manual), not just those
triggered by the
Restart= logic.
Note that units which are configured
for Restart= and
which reach the start limit are not
attempted to be restarted anymore;
however, they may still be restarted
manually at a later point, from which
point on, the restart logic is again
activated. Note that
systemctl
reset-failed will cause the
restart rate counter for a service to
be flushed, which is useful if the
administrator wants to manually start
a service and the start limit
interferes with
that.StartLimitAction=Configure the action
to take if the rate limit configured
with
StartLimitInterval=
and
StartLimitBurst= is
hit. Takes one of
,
,
, or
. If
is set,
hitting the rate limit will trigger no
action besides that the start will not
be permitted.
causes a reboot following the normal
shutdown procedure (i.e. equivalent to
systemctl reboot).
causes
a forced reboot which will terminate
all processes forcibly but should
cause no dirty file systems on reboot
(i.e. equivalent to systemctl
reboot -f) and
causes immediate execution of the
reboot2
system call, which might result in
data loss. Defaults to
.Check
systemd.exec5
and
systemd.kill5
for more settings.Compatibility OptionsThe following options are also available in the
[Service] section, but exist purely
for compatibility reasons and should not be used in
newly written service files.SysVStartPriority=Set the SysV start
priority to use to order this service
in relation to SysV services lacking
LSB headers. This option is only
necessary to fix ordering in relation
to legacy SysV services that have no
ordering information encoded in the
script headers. As such, it should only
be used as a temporary compatibility
option and should not be used in new unit
files. Almost always, it is a better
choice to add explicit ordering
directives via
After= or
Before=,
instead. For more details, see
systemd.unit5.
If used, pass an integer value in the
range 0-99.See Alsosystemd1,
systemctl8,
systemd.unit5,
systemd.exec5,
systemd.resource-control5,
systemd.kill5,
systemd.directives7