services systemd (unit)

    Published: 2023-09-23
    Updated: 2023-11-17

    Source: linuxhandbook

    Sending output to a file 🔗

    Source: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/245037/saving-process-output-to-a-file-in-systemd-unit-file

    Commands are not subject to shell parsing eg “< > << >> and &” are not treated specially. Use /bin/sh 'script.sh > out' to get around this.

    File location 🔗

    If running as root user 🔗

    File should be saved at etc/systemd/system/

    sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/SERVICE_NAME.service

    If running as non-root user 🔗

    File should be saved at ~/.config/systemd/user/ . Note that This folder usually won’t exist so create it.

    mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
nano ~/.config/systemd/user/SERVICE_NAME.service

    Example Contents 🔗

    This is the same for both. See the linuxhandbook for more info on what should be set in the file. You can find a list of targets here.

    [Unit]
Description=User Facing name of service
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/my_awesome_program >> /home/user/out.txt 2>&1'
Type=simple
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

    Enabling and starting the service 🔗

    If running as root user 🔗

    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable SERVICE_NAME.service
sudo systemctl start SERVICE_NAME

    If running as non-root user 🔗

    systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable SERVICE_NAME.service
systemctl --user start SERVICE_NAME

    Updates to service config 🔗

    This section applies if you’ve made changes to the service’s configuration and want to apply those changes

    If running as root user 🔗

    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart SERVICE_NAME

    If running as non-root user 🔗

    systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user restart SERVICE_NAME

    Removing Services 🔗

    Source: https://www.baeldung.com/linux/create-remove-systemd-services#1-removing-custom-systemd-services

    If running as root user 🔗

    sudo systemctl stop SERVICE_NAME
sudo systemctl disable SERVICE_NAME
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/SERVICE_NAME.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

    If running as non-root user 🔗

    systemctl --user stop SERVICE_NAME
systemctl --user disable SERVICE_NAME
rm ~/.config/systemd/user/SERVICE_NAME.service
systemctl --user daemon-reload