Services in Linux

Services in Linux help you configure software to run in the background as well as follow the right order of startup.

Useful Commands For Managing Services in Linux

• To start a service, run any of the following commands:

  service <service-name> start # Debian, RHEL, SLES
  
  systemctl start <service-name> # For Linux distributions that use systemd as their init system

• To stop a service, run the following command:

  systemctl stop <service-name>

• To check the status of a service run the following command:

  systemctl status <service-name>

• To configure a service to run at system boot, run the following command:

  systemctl enable <service-name>

• To disable a service from running at system boot, run the following command:

  systemctl disable <service-name>

How To Configure a Program To Run As a Service in Linux

To create a service, you need to configure it using a systemd unit file. Name the file after the service you want to create and save it in the /usr/lib/systemd/system directory with a .service extension.

Use the following template to set up your service:

# my_app.service

[Unit]
Description= <service description>

[Service]
ExectStart=<command used to run the program>
ExecStartPre=<Command to run before starting the program>
ExecStartPost=<Command to run after starting the program>
Restart=always # will restart the service if it crashes

[Install] # useful for allowing service to start at boot
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now, run the following command to reload the system

systemctl daemon-reload

You can now manage the service using the commands mentioned above!