systemd¶

List services¶

Find the name of the systemd unit for MariaDB or RabbitMQ server.

List all installed services, including disabled services, and search for “maria”:

systemctl list-unit-files --type=service | grep maria

Alternative if you know the package name:

$ rpm -ql mariadb-server|grep service
/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service

List enabled services:

systemctl list-units

Note: it looks like “list-units” doesn’t show mariadb.service, probably because it is disabled (not started at boot).

System logs: journald and journalctl¶

Binary logs are written into /var/log/journal/
Show syslog from the most recent to the oldest logs: journalctl --reverse
Show all logs since the last boot: journalctl -b 0
List boots: journalctl --list-boots
tail -f /var/log/syslog: journalctl -f
tail -f /var/log/syslog but only for apache: journalctl -u apache.service -f
Kernel logs of the current boot: journalctl -k (similar to dmesg but with better timestamp)
Retain only journald logs of the past 30 days: journalctl --vacuum-time=30d
Filters:
- journalctl _PID=7797 show logs of process pid 7797
- journalctl _COMM=chronyd -r shows latest logs of the program chronyd
Other fields:
- _EXE: program full path
- _CMDLINE: program command line with arguments
- _UID: user identifier
- _GID: group identifier
- _BOOT_ID: boot UUID
- _MACHINE_ID: machine UUID
- _HOSTNAME: hostname
- __REALTIME_TIMESTAMP: timestamp: number of microseconds (10**-6) since Unix epoch (January 1st, 1970 at 00:00), in the UTC timezone.
- SYSLOG_IDENTIFIER
See all journalctl fields: journalctl -o export

Example of a single log entry (in export mode):

__CURSOR=s=c9faccefcf184d67b8a1a1a8c9441d83;i=9417;b=b6852be278a647e3b1f1047604d828c8;m=3e8ae848;t=5a093d6b361fa;x=2c3f533b3fc622ed
__REALTIME_TIMESTAMP=1583931706270202
__MONOTONIC_TIMESTAMP=1049290824
_BOOT_ID=b6852be278a647e3b1f1047604d828c8
PRIORITY=6
SYSLOG_FACILITY=3
_UID=1000
_GID=1000
_SELINUX_CONTEXT=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
_AUDIT_SESSION=3
_AUDIT_LOGINUID=1000
_SYSTEMD_OWNER_UID=1000
_SYSTEMD_UNIT=user@1000.service
_SYSTEMD_SLICE=user-1000.slice
_SYSTEMD_USER_SLICE=-.slice
_MACHINE_ID=1a6df4a3ce76477790264e5d3a9fa609
_HOSTNAME=apu
_TRANSPORT=stdout
SYSLOG_IDENTIFIER=gnome-shell
_COMM=gnome-shell
_EXE=/usr/bin/gnome-shell
_CMDLINE=/usr/bin/gnome-shell
_CAP_EFFECTIVE=800000
_SYSTEMD_CGROUP=/user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/gnome-shell-wayland.service
_SYSTEMD_USER_UNIT=gnome-shell-wayland.service
_PID=1702
_SYSTEMD_INVOCATION_ID=5afe30294e9c49d6b27ff3011323619a
_STREAM_ID=e46f4fd89cd3445fbac494d0814d34a5
MESSAGE
<80>^@^@^@^@^@^@^@libinput error: client bug: timer event13 debounce short: scheduled expiry is in the past (-5ms), your system is too slow

Advantages over scattered text log files:

Timestamps seem to be more reliable, especially for kernel logs
Ability to display logs in the reverse order
Ability to filter logs by service, by user, by process pid, by boot, etc.
… in fact, I rarely use logs, so I don’t have strong expectations for logs :-)

Advantages of systemd to run services¶

I like systemd global design to build “stateless” services, by isolating them from the system for example.
Security: systemd gives access to high level security protections like running a service with its own private temporary directory /tmp (option PrivateTmp). Options:
- ProtectKernelModules=yes
- MemoryDenyWriteExecute=yes
- RestrictRealtime=yes
- PrivateNetwork=yes
- PrivateTmp=yes
- ProtectSystem=yes
- ProtectHome=yes
- Read also Using systemd for more secure services in Fedora
systemd can even create a couple of temporary (user, group) to run a service and remove theme once the service stops. To be able to implement this feature, systemd has to cleanup all resources owner by the user. Running the service with a read-only filesystem except of a single writable directory helps to remove all files created by the service. Removing all IPC owned by a user is part of this cleanup (option RemoveIPC).
systemctl status service shows the last log lines.
Thanks to cgroups, systemd is able to list all processes of a service in a secure manner. systemctl status service lists all process identfiers of the service (main pid, but also pids of child processes). Moreover, when systemd stops a service, the usage of a cgroups makes sure that all processes are killed. Bye bye the legacy and annoying “pid file” causing so many troubles.
The simple .service file format makes it much easier to share these files between Linux distributions. Linux distributions can collaborate on more complex issues like handling properly NFS mounts: Systemd programming, 30 months later. Moreover, it’s easier to enable security protections for all Linux distributions.

There is a similar trend to isolate desktop applications using sandboxes: see Flatpak. For security, but also to reduce dependencies to the system, and so run an old application on a newer system, or the opposite. Embedding libraries in Flatpak “containers” comes with its own set of issues, but that’s a different topic ;-)

coredumpctl¶

Disable systemd-coredump¶

Default configuration:

$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern
|/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-coredump %P %u %g %s %t %c %h

To disable systemd-coredump, create /etc/sysctl.d/50-coredump.conf file which contains:

# Disable systemd-coredump
kernel.core_pattern=

And reboot. After reboot, check that /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern is empty.

systemd trolls¶

systemd features are not unique, it’s totally doable without sytemd.

Right, but systemd comes with a simple configuration files (.service files) which gives an easy access to these features.

systemd has bugs!

Right, as any other software. And they are quickly fixed.

systemd developers reject patches to support platforms other than Linux:

Ok, this is a real issue. I have no answer for that one :-)

Links:

BSD systems don’t use systemd but reimplemented the strict minimum systemd APIs required by Gnome.

Slow boot: systemd-udev-settle and hdaudioC1D0¶

systemd-analyze:

[root@apu vstinner]# systemd-analyze blame
2min 546ms systemd-udev-settle.service
   47.157s dnf-makecache.service
    5.935s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
    3.331s plymouth-quit-wait.service
    2.803s lvm2-monitor.service
    2.695s fwupd.service
    (...)

System logs:

[root@apu vstinner]# journalctl -b
mai 25 14:05:46 apu kernel: Linux version 5.6.12-300.fc32.x86_64 (...)
(...)
mai 25 14:06:53 apu systemd-udevd[626]: hdaudioC1D0: Worker [648] processing SEQNUM=3956 is taking a long time
(...)
mai 25 14:07:49 apu systemd[1]: systemd-udev-settle.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
(...)
mai 25 14:07:49 apu systemd[1]: systemd-udev-settle.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
mai 25 14:07:49 apu systemd[1]: Failed to start udev Wait for Complete Device Initialization.
(...)
mai 25 14:08:53 apu systemd-udevd[626]: hdaudioC1D0: Worker [648] processing SEQNUM=3956 killed
mai 25 14:08:53 apu systemd-udevd[626]: Worker [648] terminated by signal 9 (KILL)
mai 25 14:08:53 apu systemd-udevd[626]: hdaudioC1D0: Worker [648] failed

Blacklist i2c_nvidia_gpu kernel module:

sudo bash -c 'echo "blacklist i2c_nvidia_gpu" >/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-i2c-nvidia-gpu.conf'

Kernel driver i2c-nvidia-gpu: “driver for I2C controller included in NVIDIA Turing and later GPUs and it is used to communicate with Type-C controller on GPUs”.