Introducing SystemD Pilot, GUI app for managing systemd services
SystemD Pilot is a desktop application for managing systemd services on GNU/linux machines. The app is very lightweight and supports common tasks such as starting and stopping systemd services.
It can also show detailed status for each service.
Features: List services
Filter by running state
Start, Stop, Restart, Enable and Disable services + show status for each service
Create override configuration for any unit file using the edit button
Option for reloading systemd manager configuration (systemctl daemon-reload)
Easy search. Just start typing and the app will find relevant services
Lightweight
Available for download as deb, rpm and AppImage
Integration into GNOME desktop (libadwaita)
Made with love for the FOSS community. Please give it a try and share your thoughts.
65 replies
Fantastic, Linux needs tools like this for users who need to make occasional changes and inspect
systemd.For inspiration, I would suggest you also look at LaunchControl, which is a GUI tool to administer
launchdon macOS.There are some. COCKPIT would probably suit most people. OpenSUSE has a GUI Services tool built into YAST
Some other projects for the same usage:
https://github.com/KDE/systemdgenie
https://github.com/GuillaumeGomez/systemd-manager
😇
Nice, thanks! So weird these tools are not commonly used - managing systemd remains one of the common terminal PITAs for everyone who doesn't appreciate the Great Holy Terminal
Funny thing is, that there are many things I prefer the terminal for, but systemd deamons are not these things 😂
Yeah i hate managing systemd stuff because its messy on terminal
Aren't those defunct? I was looking for examples of exactly this a while back and none of them were being actively maintained.
I use Systemd-Manager since a long time now and it worked always well. But it could well be, that it is unmaintained..
NO! NO, I WON'T HAVE IT!
I will not give up my command line, obscure, non-obvious commands that control my machine!
It is an abomination that I don't have to search for, and then wade through hundreds of AI generated pages of useless information just to show me what services are running with systemd!
I am seriously considering starting my own startup system. I am thinking I could initiate (init) runlevels to start subsystems at various stages. If anyone is interested, hit me up.
Maybe you can script everything, with convoluted interconnections that are impossible to troubleshoot. Now that would be the way to control all the systems behind impenetrable obfuscation and keep those dratted normies from understanding anything.
I personally find the best use of AI is to read those pages of useless information and summarise what I actually want to know.
Google: " hugo, show total number of posts not including pages " = advertising, a billion pages of partially but not entirely relevant information that takes ages to wade through.
Gemini: same question: Clear explanation and working examples in seconds.
They're both google, but one knows what I'm actually trying to say and doesn't (yet) push advertising at me.
this dude boots 😎
What license are you offering it under?
GPL v3.
The only right choice! Thanks!
Btw add license to the repo and license info to readme
Thanks, will do.
Didn’t know Pedro pascal was a coder
Oooh this will be perfect for a bunch of stuff I do.
Can you create new services or do you still need to create the .service file manually?
What about .timer files?
I've been thinking about a "create new service" feature but I'm not sure about two things: 1.how useful it can be 2.how to implement this to actually make life easier for end users
Adding a generic template would not be difficult.
I would absolutely use it. In fact creating and editing services would be the primary selling point IMO. It doesn't need to be much "easier" than doing it in the terminal or file explorer, to me the primary benefit would just be the ease of use of creating, loading, and starting a new service all in one place.
I think a generic template would be great.
You could turn the whole thing into a giant GUI settings screen, allowing navigation to an exectuable, after which you could provide some of the most typical options as sliders, number fields, switches, or whatever is suitable. But that would be a large amount of work, and I'm not sure it would simplify things much.
The starting point should just be a text field, but with a link to the service file docs for help/reference.
Brilliant thanks for your feedback and thoughts. Will look into this.
As far as i can tell a full gui for systemd service files would be practically impossible. But a template ui would be sick, maybe something like an app autostart template could look like this:
Just spitballing here though.
This was added to the latest version. You can now quickly start a new service from the app.
awesome! Tysm
And the RestartSomethingInterval=0 option so systemd keeps restarting the program like an obedient machine it should be, not give up because it's tired
Even if the new service is "just" a text field for code + the name of the service. If it saves it in the right location for you its useful. Not having to fiddle with that stuff as an end user is nice.
Done! Chack out the latest version.
I tried it yesterday and it looks great. And I have three pieces of feedback:
Thanks for your feedback. Did you try version 3.0?
Making life easier for end users means more documentation about what you are doing. I mean that's the main difference between Commandline and a GUI.
Oh look Avahi Service, let's stop it, what does it mean to stop it.
Creating a new Service, sure but what is needed, are there examples? Formfill lines with a hint what's needed, maybe some dropdown entries?
You got what I mean.
Just having something that shows the field options and formats it correctly would be fantastic. Tooltips and all that could be added later to lower the bar of entry for new users.
Nice i will try it out.
Thanks :) Hope you find it useful
Any chance this lands in the AUR?
I've not used arch for years but I'll look into this.
can it do mask/unmask?
Not in this version. I'll add that and more for the next release.
cool!
Looks neat, does its job.
If you're a power-user looking at this, you can also look at https://github.com/rgwood/systemctl-tui which is somewhat similar but seems to be more useful (for now), also showing the service logs and being easily navigable with a keyboard.
Does it support per-user systemd services?
It will, in the next release.
I am running a headless server, but still want to make managing my systemd services easier. Any recommendations? I think I'm looking for something that is to
systemdwhathtopis totop🤔EDIT: Thanks for all the recs!
I know you asked for cli apps, and maybe you have already heard of it, but in case you haven't, cockpit is a pretty nice web UI for managing your server (not just systemd services, but everything)
Funnily enough, just saw people on Lemmy talking about this one the other day
https://github.com/joehillen/sysz
Awesome, Flatpak?
Yes flatpak will be realesed too.
Thanks for this! Works pretty well when testing -
This is good. We need more GUI tools to keep the noobs out of the terminal. Not only because that gives a better impression, but it also protects them from doing a command wrong and really hurting something.
It is nice to have guard rails like a GUI until you grasp the possibilities, that's how I've learned historically coming from DOS and Windows at least, but you can still mess things up plenty with this tool.
Really cool bro. Always loved GUI for command line utils!
I miss the days before SystemD, it seemed simpler.
Autoexec.bat or bust!
I remember there being a KCM for Plasma Settings that did this sort of thing.
Yes i think it's called systemdGenie
oh it's not an official thing, that could probably use some more clarification as the name makes it sound like something developed by the systemd people
Cool. I have been using the built in YAST2 GUI services on OpenSUSE. But for other machines COCKPIT webgui uses systems to view and manage services.
I switched to linux a little over a year ago and went with MX Linux because they have great GUI tools for windows refugees like myself, and because they don't like systemd over there they use cron jobs. Now, having switched to Nobara I've just installed both SystemD Pilot here, but also found KCron, a KDE Cron configuration module which allows for the same functionality as what I'm used to.
If I just want to setup a "when system starts" daemon, is there really any difference in using one over the other? I guess it's possible to shut down services more gracefully?
In any case, great job on this utility.
Services are the more standard way of doing that. They are more resilient and you could troubleshoot more easily. Glad you are happy with systemd Pilot. Feel frree to share your thoughts or ask for new features.
100% Python, nice.
Awesome, thank you alot.
I'd prefer to manage systemd profiles in the rearview.
man wtf. I've been searching for something like this.
aw fuck, I thought this was a web interface like cockpit. ok nvm :(
What's wrong with cockpit?