Systemd Deep-Dive: A Complete, Easy to Understand Guide for Everyone

Systemd - it's the most popular init system when it comes to Linux, and everyone loves it. Honest. But whether or not you love Systemd, you're going to love this video because it will teach you all the core basics of Systemd. This coverage will include starting, stopping, restarting units, location priority in regard to unit file locations, editing service units and more! (And yes, you WILL learn Systemd with this video, or your money back!!!)
Note: Be sure to check the time code section to see what's covered. One or more follow-up videos will be made at some point in the future to cover anything I ran out of time for. Enjoy!
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Time Codes
00:00 - Intro
01:10 - How this video will be structured
02:11 - Some basic knowledge on init systems, etc
04:46 - What are Units in terms of Systemd?
06:02 - Installing Apache (for use as an example service unit)
07:51 - Checking the status of a Systemd Unit
09:34 - Starting a Systemd Unit
11:02 - How to stop a Unit with Systemd
11:47 - Restarting a Unit
12:38 - Enabling/Disabling Systemd Units
15:58 - Where are Systemd's Unit files stored?
20:40 - Systemd unit file directory priority/preference
23:31 - Taking a closer look at a Systemd Service File
30:22 - How "reload" differs from "restart" in Systemd Service Units
31:37 - Service File explanation (continued)
33:02 - Editing and Overriding Systemd Unit Files
42:01 - Reloading Systemd with systemd daemon-reload (and why you should)
43:06 - Some tips on creating your own unit files
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#CloudComputing #DevOps #Systemd

[@chancepaayokigarchha3663]

Jay, you are a hero for a lot of people :)

[@jimb599]

I completely agree, thank you Jay, you are my main professor as I travel this journey. June will mark my 1 year anniversary with Linux! Because of the awesome gift you possess in teaching, calm, clear, truly knowledgeable about what you teach, and that you're remarkably thorough, I have not just learned, but put to use all the skills you've taught me in one year, whereas a student in college might have taken 3-4 years to learn! Now my life and career is looking great! Thank you once again Jay!

[@TheDiveO]

yo, before I could simply enter some text and hey here's the immediate find. now I have to watch through lots of bla bla and still won't find what helps me. Great achievement, so thankful for this channel, now I waste even more time on systemd, notword, and all its "friends.

[@SakinaLamrini]

I agree bro 💯

[@praecorloth]

7:09 Great! I don't know about other people, but I often watch the beginners portion of any educational piece on KZbin. There's always something new to learn, and it's amazing how often it's something basic about a tool I generally already know how to use.

[@xmecep]

like bro, i literally did not know until this video, that you can use a mouse to press on something in htop to sort it by that pressed thing... so the room of developing the knowledge is infinite

[@gatonero576]

I'm a longtime amateur linux user for about 23 years. I have had to switch to systemd because my distros switched. But never understood systemd and the discussions really. Now I know a lot more than the few basic commands. Thank You!

[@celestialbeing4767]

A power user you are

[@sussusamogus7831]

@@celestialbeing4767 🤓🤓🤓

[@gavinskurrie]

Duuuuude! Amazing work Jay! Def one of my favourite channels! Appreciate your time and effort mate!

[@rowenarrow]

This is a great video. I found myself needing to understand PID, services, and systemctl a bit more so I am grateful for this content.

[@ninja2807]

A great content as always.... your KZbin channel is one of the few left tech creators that are actually teaching something and not showing off how much you know. Ps: Yes, please more tutorial on systemd.

[@JulioOAO]

Thanks so much for this video, it is really helpful and clarifying. I've been dealing just recently with systemd for the last few days and this gave me a better understanding of how it works.

[@PhilipBonev]

Thanks for the great guide. I did not know about "systemctl edit" and I created the files by hand. With edit you don't have to think where to put the file and so on.

[@manum8170]

This video was awesome. Any continuation to systemd is welcome

[@sssxxxttt]

Thanks, I hope for a followup

[@tao4mike]

Definitely looking forward to more videos on this topic!

[@linux2650]

Was waiting for this! Thanks a lot Jay!

[@AriannaEuryaleMusic]

The BEST LINUX YT Channel, Thank YOU!... I ALWAYS Learn very important lessons from LLTV

[@psickophantpsickophant4339]

Excellent content. This is the best guide that I have come across regarding systemd. Thank you so much.

[@KarlBrouillette]

Your videos are always informative and clear. Thank you very much and I will pickup a copy of your book as soon as I can.

[@jamesabernathy9744]

Great video. I particularly liked the systemctl edit sections. Very useful to me

[@yordankisyov4801]

Thanks, I can't wait to see more content on systemD and other types of units that it handles on our behalf

[@Theborg72]

thanks.. always looking forward to new courses and new customers in the wonderful world of linux

[@Mikesco3]

The systemd timer to replace cron sounds like an interesting video, can't wait to see that

[@ob1jakobi]

I just stumbled across this video, and I'm very impressed. It's very rare to find someone who can explain things clearly and concisely, with perfect pacing and reiterations. I'm so glad i found your channel. Please keep up the good work.

[@kosson]

Super! Cannot wait for the next one!

[@Wandy1D]

The quality and clarity of your videos are getting better and better. I love the soft background and excellent lighting, including the “fill” light around your hear

[@J.A.11]

One of the best videos I've seen in a while.

[@Ramiraz]

Thanks for the video Jay, I would love a video about systemd mount and systemd timers.

[@kaspersergej]

Recently your videos are spot on in terms of my interests!

[@theshowmanuk]

This is great ! Thanks for sharing this.

[@graybri]

Great video. I would like to see more on systemd Targets next maybe?

[@squid13579]

Jay and Sander van vugt are the best linux educators. But respect for jay because delivering this kind of content without any fees, it such huge applaud. 🐧🔥♥️

[@bobdud3176]

Thank you Professor Jay! You are the best for sharing that huge amount of knowledge with us!!!! ❤❤❤

[@elielberra2867]

You are an amazing teacher, thank you so much for sharing your lessons!!

[@extraymond]

Appreciate the content as always!

[@HiAdrian]

Another pitfall with the edit/override feature is that options which can be specified multiple times will not be overridden. For example, one may assume *ExecStart=* was changed by the override, when in fact it was merely _added_ to the existing base config. The solution there is to clear them first via empty assignment, followed by a second assignment to the desired new value.

[@patrickprucha5522]

Jay, very well put together! Thank you for your time and efforts on doing helpful video's like this. While i was watching your video, i was taking down ton of notes as my sys admin repository! Thanks again! Cheers

[@SB-qm5wg]

I forgot about the over-ride. TY for the vid.

[@ivyndane10]

Woow i feel like my journey to become a system administrator has started thanks for such a wonderful great video

[@zeppelin0110]

Excellent guide. Thank you.

[@hiutale]

Thank you! 😊 This video was pure awesomeness and, as fate seems to have it, was uploaded pretty much the same time when I realized I must find out about systemd. 😁 Magnificent job!

[@i--i4933]

thank you bro your channel really helped me :)

[@vnetpost]

thanks jay, i m waiting for more videos about systemd :)

[@innovationsurvival]

Very, very, very helpful. Profuse thanks. Raspberry Pi Debian switched to systemd and all auto run at boot tutorials were useless. Profuse thanks.

[@kwangee]

Valuable knowledge, thank you👏

[@kongpanha1816]

Thanks so much for your sharing

[@liyangau]

Thank you Jay. For a follow up video, I would like to see how to run systemd service as non-root user.

[@nicoladellino8124]

Very useful video, THX Jay.

[@CrazyMineCuber]

Some more things you could go into more details about: systemd-nsspawn and systemd containers, systemd-analyse command for startup time, dependency graph and security anlysis of your system, systemd mounts, how to query journalctl properly, useful hardening oprion like privatetmp, protecthome, protectdevices. Ephemeral units with systemd-run.systemd timers and connecting systemd with udev for running services when for example a USB drive is plugged in to trigger some ebackup job

[@CrazyMineCuber]

systemd credentials is jet another thing to look into and how systemd interacts with secure boot and encryption. There are some interesting blog posts from Lennart about it.

[@aliyektaie9123]

I don’t understand hiw you make complicated things so easy to understand, but I’m glad you do! Thanks 🙏

[@aliyektaie9123]

I always learn something new from your videos 😊

[@andrewlundquist-mp3xq]

Way better than other youtubers on the subject by far. I would request a follow up video on .timers units. My distro doesn't even have cron installed because they think timers are better.

[@user-mx1tu2qj2i]

very cool 10q ! certenly can be very nice to see more examples of systemd service file examples.

[@coldhardwick]

I already know quite a bit about service units. Going over the other unit types would be helpful.

[@juanrebella2589]

great content, thanks!

[@DipanjanPatra]

Very concise systemd introduction!

[@CharlesWilson-tt3bo]

Very good tutorial!

[@CrazyMineCuber]

Something that I found out recently is drop in units, which can be extremely useful in certain situations. Drop-in units allow you to set specific settings for a specific type of systemd unit (for example .service). With this, I was able to set the default OnFailure to trigger a notification script that alerts the main user on the system when any systemd unit fails on the system. This is something that every Linux distribution should have out of the box, but I have not seen anywhere else.

[@CB-pf5lb]

Also learned about that a few months ago and I'm loving it!

[@budlolololololololol]

Do you have an example of this? This is relevant to my interests regarding a very old NAS server at work that may or may not have disks fail at any time. Sounds like what I've been looking for

[@CrazyMineCuber]

@@budlolololololololol /etc/systemd/system/service.d/toplevel-overrides.conf [Unit] OnFailure=notify-on-failure@%n.service where notify-on-failure@ is a template unit that takes the other unit's name as a parameter and sends a notification wherever you like through either email, notify-send, matrix or whatever you fancy.

[@CrazyMineCuber]

@@budlolololololololol Honestly though, seem like you better move the data away from the NAS and replace it with a proper zfs pool with weekly scrubs and storage alerts via email.

[@aminalizadeh1883]

Great content, thank you. Is it possible to create one with all the details related to SystemD?

[@LinuxTree]

Oh my God, Jay. Think back when you first started this and now it's a huge change. I love the new editing and the quality is so good! When you opened up about how you grew up and have ADHD it really motivated me and inspired me! I also have a similar story and was diagnosed with ADHD in middle school. I just want to say thank you for everything you do, I currently am working for a major bank and always wanted to do Linux so I worked my way into the Linux side from starting Mainframe. This Systemd course is exactly what I need since I still need to pass the second half of the LPIC-1. I'm sure you inspired way more people than myself but I want to let you know you helped me a lot.

[@alexace4674]

Hey Jay. One question. When we use "systemctl edit httpd.service" it creates override file in "/etc/systemd/system/httpd.service.d/override.conf". The drop-in mechanism is designed to automatically include files from the appropriate *.d/ directory (in this case, httpd.service.d/) when processing the main unit file. The drop-in files are read by systemd when starting and managing the service, and the configurations are merged. Are there cases when we should add line in the original ".conf" to include the override files in *.d directories?

[@davidbayliss3789]

I'm about 1 min 50 sec in. I already had reservations because of the use of the word "everyone". I've met many people including professionals and regular internet users who wouldn't know the difference between hardware, an Operating System, or an internet browser. They're among the "smart" ones! And then ... within the first 1.5 mins or so, I learn that this guide won't cover everything??? What? But the video title says "complete guide" [in essence]? Hmmm. I suppose you can have a complete guide on specific deep dive that doesn't have to cover everything ... but still ... I interpreted/inferred a sense of completeness being intended. -- Jokey sarcasm aside ... I'll continue watching when I get time. I find this channel's videos informative and useful and I can always benefit from quality content on Systemd. (Thanks for the content!).

[@0ppression]

Great video. I gotta know what that desk is I want it!

[@cole.maxwell]

Thank you!

[@RobertFabiano]

Would like a follow up video. Thx again!

[@Nixima81]

Very helpful trying to learn Linux and how it works and how i can change it if needed. I auto mount follow up would be grate sense i just deleted my notes i had on it and plain text from wiki doesn't always do it for this old mind.

[@jofraniac]

Excellent content as always, just what I was needing to learn, thank you so much.

[@mauriciob3334]

what a video, thanks for it

[@kamertonaudiophileplayer847]

I use TJWS , so your guide is a great.

[@rubberduckey5630]

Mastering Ubuntu Server AKA Jays Ubuntu Notebook 20.04 was a great read and looking forward to picking up 22.04 when I get ready for vacation. I wish there was a deltas version though. Been watching since I fell down the rabbit hole and look forward to these videos. I'd be interested in an updated ssh video with the 22.04 changes. I had ssh issues with my 22.04 LXCs after changing the port. The solution I ended up on was just disabling ssh.socket and enabling sshd.service. It works, I'm still curious about how Canonical intended it to be implemented.

[@unixbadger]

Thanks!

[@JudgeFredd]

Great channel !

[@bryanrobinson1980]

Great content as always. Although, the audio seems to be odd. Every time you paused, the audio seemed to cut off the beginning of each statement. Might need to check your recording equipment. My musician ear was finding it distracting.

[@sotecluxan4221]

Superb!

[@BrewPots123]

Excellent, very enlightening. Can't wait for more videos covering different aspects of systemd.

[@TheThagenesis]

I've used System V init style stuff for >20 years and since systemd is basically in its infancy I came here hoping to learn something new and surely enough systemd overrides were something I didn't knew about. but I also learned about path units only quite a while ago and I think advanced users should really be aware of this possibility

[@nicwhites]

... Systemd is not in it's infancy ...

[@user-te2wp8kd3v]

Thank you a lot for this. I am preparing myself for an interview for linux dev position and had no idea what systemd is before. Now I feel confident.

[@fatty-it-man]

Very good!!

[@yuzhu2547]

[Unit] Description=Learn Linux TV and Jay are awesome!

[@TheMrWenden]

thank you

[@azizkouiki]

Thank you

[@henrikm610]

"which doesnt work for some reason." :D SO entertaining! Great content! thank you!

[@zanthehedgehog]

🙂great video ubuntu for life!

[@CharliefromAussieland]

Thank you J. I just found out that in this new version something GREAT was added: The "Take Ownership" of the Drive/partition. As far as I know, that was not available before. This powerful tool (and essential for added drives) was added as an option in: Disks > Your Specific Drive > In Additional partition options (the little gear icon) > Select "Take Ownership" > Reboot. That is fast and trouble-free too!...

[@mdbarin2014]

First thanks a lot for ue nice teaching. A question plz: do u have some videos focusing on LPIC1?

[@HiAdrian]

27:30 Would have been helpful to state that *Wants=* instructs systemd to start the listed unit(s), whereas *After=* passively waits for them. Really well made video though!

[@esra_erimez]

Will you be covering other parts of systemd such as boot, journelctl, dns, etc...

[@CrazyMineCuber]

Could you do a deep dive into udev as well?

[@johnathanjames2872]

The intro for me mahn 😆

[@lyndawright8716]

This looks like the most difficult part for me!! I don't quite understand this, yet i desperately want a change from Microsoft! .

[@herku44]

Love Syncthing 😁

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Me too!

[@First_Principals]

Can you do a comparison of an init system and system D?

[@uuu12343]

Please do one for all the init systems?

[@bendono]

Great video. I've used systemd on and off for a few years. I knew that it controlled services, but did not fully understand the difference between units. I was a little surprised hearing "lib" pronounced [laɪb]. I usually hear it pronounced as [lɪb]. Though I assume it is an abbreviation for "library", which is [laɪbɹəɹi] (at least in US English). Here in Japan it is pronounced "ribu" (as Japanese doesn't have an 'l' and all syllables--except 'n'--have a CV structure, so must have a final vowel.)

[@swisspeach67]

I was surprised too... I think the majority of english speakers (or other languages) will pronounce it as [lɪb]. I wonder, how he pronounces /dev/ or /proc/

[@k.h.9008]

Great. I recently found out the "--user" option. Please cover the other types of the units. (I use Arch, btw.)

[@CarlosGT13]

You can do a "linux primitives" playlist, to explan things as this. Please explain linux runlevels

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Hi any tutorial or link how I can put the Systemd onto a Windows 11 Installer Flashdrive using Windows or even better using maOS? Thank you, God bless you.

[@bizulk]

I was saying to myself, hey I should start first by looking at some arch linux page about systemd, then I saw the t-shirt...

[@celestialbeing4767]

Appreciate it, up next openRC, and other init systems. Not much context on it. I suspect for power users and enthusiasts. The audience

[@jorgen0lsen863]

The graphics and edits in this video is actually awesome. Like the fact that You put the "slides" in a terminal 🙂

[@EgonWi]

Why isn't the PID of the systemd process not 0?

[@eliassaloum48]

can you show us how to mount a drive using systemd?

[@smiths121]

If all systend was, was an init system that unfair sthma would not exist to be pushed to one side. Still good video despite that bumpy start.

[@a7i3n93]

Well ... drinking coffee during that opening was a mistake (funny).

[@sma92878]

Very nice overview, I'd love an overview on how to add something like a Python script as a startup services.