Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd: Advanced techniques to effectively manage, control, and monitor Linux systems and services

Length: 420 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Packt Publishing
Publication Date: 2022-02-03
ISBN-10: 1801811644
ISBN-13: 9781801811644
Sales Rank: #1725253 (See Top 100 Books)

A comprehensive guide for teaching system administrators, developers, and security professionals how to create their own systemd units and maintain system security

Key Features

Get well-versed with maintaining and troubleshooting systemd services
Learn to create, modify, and reload service files and use systemd utilities
Use cgroups to control resource usage and enhance security

Book Description

systemd is a new type of Linux init system for today’s high-performance, multi-CPU, and multi-core hardware that is now used on all major enterprise-grade Linux distros. The main goal of this Linux systemd book is to help you get an in-depth understanding of systemd to set up your servers securely and efficiently.

This book starts by explaining systemd management, which will help you manage your servers effectively. You’ll then learn how to edit and create your own systemd units, which will be particularly helpful if you need to create custom services or timers and add features or security to an existing service. Next, you’ll understand how to analyze and fix boot-up challenges and set system parameters. Later, you’ll come across cgroups, that’ll help you control system resource usage for both processes and users. The book also shows you how cgroups are structured, the differences between cgroups Version 1 and 2, and how to set resource limits on both. Finally, you’ll learn about the systemd way of performing time-keeping, networking, logging, and login management. You’ll discover how to configure servers accurately and gather system information to analyze system security and performance.

By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to efficiently manage all aspects of a server running the systemd init system.

What you will learn

Use basic systemd utilities to manage a system
Create and edit your own systemd units
Create services for Podman-Docker containers
Enhance system security by adding security-related parameters
Find important information with journald
Analyze boot-up problems
Configure system settings with systemd utilities

Who this book is for

This book is for Linux administrators who want to learn more about maintaining and troubleshooting Linux servers. Aspiring administrators studying for a Linux certification exam and developers looking to learn how to create systemd unit files will also find this book useful. Additionally, this book will be helpful for security administrators who want to understand the security settings that can be used in systemd units and how to control resource usage with cgroups. Working knowledge of basic Linux commands is assumed.

Understanding the Need for systemd
Understanding systemd Directories and Files
Understanding Service, Path, and Socket Units
Controlling systemd Services
Creating and Editing Services
Understanding systemd Targets
Understanding systemd Timers
Understanding the systemd Boot Process
Setting System Parameters
Understanding Shutdown and Reboot Commands
Understanding cgroups Version 1
Controlling Resource Usage with cgroups Version 1
Understanding cgroup Version 2
Using journald
Using systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved
Understanding Timekeeping with systemd
Understanding systemd and Bootloaders
Understanding systemd-logind

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Preface
    Who this book is for
    What this book covers
    To get the most out of this book
    Download the example code files
    Code in Action
    Download the color images
    Conventions used
    Get in touch
    Share Your Thoughts
Section 1: Using systemd
Chapter 1: Understanding the Need for systemd
    Technical requirements
    The history of Linux init systems
    The shortcomings of SysV Init and upstart
    The advantages of systemd
        systemd's simplicity
        systemd's consistency
        systemd's performance
        systemd security
    The systemd controversy
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 2: Understanding systemd Directories and Files
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the systemd configuration files
    Understanding the systemd unit files
        Types of unit files
    Understanding the systemd executables
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 3: Understanding Service, Path, and Socket Units
    Technical requirements
    Understanding service units
        Understanding the Apache service file
        Understanding the Secure Shell service file
        Understanding the timesyncd service file
    Understanding socket units
    Understanding path units
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 4: Controlling systemd Services
    Technical requirements
    Verifying the status of a service
    Starting, stopping, and reloading services
    Enabling and disabling services
    Killing a service
    Masking a service
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 5: Creating and Editing Services
    Technical requirements
    Editing an existing service
        Creating a partial edit to the [Install] section
        Creating a partial edit to the [Service] section
        Creating a full edit
    Creating a new service
    Changing the default systemd editor
    Creating a new container service with podman
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 6: Understanding systemd Targets
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the purpose of systemd targets
    Understanding the structure of a target file
        Understanding the sockets.target file
        Understanding dependencies in the sshd.service file
    Comparing systemd targets to SysVinit runlevels
    Understanding target dependencies
    Changing the default target
    Temporarily changing the target
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 7: Understanding systemd Timers
    Technical requirements
    Comparing systemd timers with cron
        Viewing timer information
    Understanding timer options
        Understanding monotonic timers
        Understanding real-time timers
        Understanding calendar events for real-time timers
    Creating timers
        Creating a system-level timer
        Creating a user-level timer
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 8: Understanding the systemd Boot Process
    Technical requirements
    Comparing SysV bootup and systemd bootup
        Understanding SysV and systemd bootup similarities
        Understanding the SysV bootup process
        Understanding the systemd bootup process
    Analyzing bootup performance
    Some differences on Ubuntu Server 20.04
    Understanding systemd generators
        Understanding mount units
        Understanding backward compatibility
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 9: Setting System Parameters
    Technical requirements
    Setting the locale parameter
        Understanding the locale
        Changing the default locale on the Alma machine
        Changing the default locale on Ubuntu
    Setting time and timezone parameters
    Setting the hostname and machine information
        Viewing the information
        Setting the information
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 10: Understanding Shutdown and Reboot Commands
    Technical requirements
    Shutting down with systemctl
    Halting with systemctl
    Rebooting with systemctl
    Using shutdown instead of systemctl
    Running a job before shutting down
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Section 2: Understanding cgroups
Chapter 11: Understanding cgroups Version 1
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the history of cgroups
    Understanding the purpose of cgroups
    Understanding the structure of cgroups Version 1
    Understanding the cgroup filesystem
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 12: Controlling Resource Usage with cgroups Version 1
    Technical requirements
    Understanding resource controllers
        Examining the resource controllers
        Preparing for the demos
    Controlling CPU usage
        Controlling Vicky's CPU usage
        Controlling CPU usage for a service
    Controlling memory usage
    Controlling blkio usage
        Setting a blkio limit for Vicky
        Setting a blkio limit for a service
    Understanding pam_limits and ulimit
        The ulimit command
        The pam_limits module
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 13: Understanding cgroup Version 2
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the need for Version 2
        Version 1 complexity
        Version 1 attribute filenames
        No support for rootless containers
    Understanding the improvements in cgroup Version 2
    Setting resource limits on rootless containers
    Understanding cpuset
    Converting RHEL 8-type distros to cgroup version 2
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Section 3: Logging, Timekeeping, Networking, and Booting
Chapter 14: Using journald
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the pros and cons of rsyslog
    Understanding the pros and cons of journald
    Understanding journald on Ubuntu
    Understanding journald on RHEL-type systems
    Using journalctl
        Searching for and viewing log data with journalctl
    Sealing journald log files for security
    Setting up remote logging with journald
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 15: Using systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved
    Technical requirements
    Understanding networkd and resolved
    Understanding Netplan on Ubuntu
        Viewing installer-generated Netplan configurations
        Creating Netplan configurations
    Understanding networkd and resolved on RHEL-type machines
    Using networkctl and resolvectl
    Viewing the networkd and resolved unit files
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 16: Understanding Timekeeping with systemd
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the importance of accurate time
    Comparing NTP implementations
    Understanding chrony on the AlmaLinux machine
        The chronyd.service file
        The chrony.conf file
        Setting up a chronyd time server
        Using chronyc
    Understanding systemd-timesyncd
        The systemd-timesyncd.service file
        The timesyncd.conf file
        Using timedatectl
        Configuring Ubuntu to use chrony
    Understanding the Precision Time Protocol
        An overview of PTP
        Installing PTP
        Configuring PTP with software timestamping on AlmaLinux
        Configuring PTP with hardware timestamping on AlmaLinux
        Configuring PTP with software timestamping on Ubuntu
        Configuring PTP with hardware timestamping on Ubuntu
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 17: Understanding systemd and Bootloaders
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the basic computer architecture
    Understanding GRUB2
        Comparing GRUB2 on BIOS and EFI/UEFI systems
        GRUB2 on BIOS-based and EFI/UEFI-based Ubuntu machines
    Understanding systemd-boot
    Understanding Secure Boot
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
Chapter 18: Understanding systemd-logind
    Technical requirements
    Understanding the need for a new login service
    Understanding systemd-logind.service
        The Alma Linux systemd-logind.service file
        The Ubuntu Server systemd-logind.service file
    Understanding logind.conf
        Virtual terminals
        Keeping user processes going after logout
        Power management directives
        The IdleAction directives
    Understanding loginctl
    Understanding polkit
    Summary
    Questions
    Answers
    Further reading
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