Systemd and Modern Linux Service Management

Systemd is the standard for service management on most Linux distros. Use it for reliability and observability.

Unit Basics#

[Unit]
Description=My App
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=exec
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/myapp
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
User=app
LimitNOFILE=65536

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Best Practices#

• Restart=on-failure with RestartSec to avoid tight restart loops.
• User= non-root; use CapabilityBoundingSet and NoNewPrivileges when possible.
• LimitNOFILE, LimitNPROC to avoid resource exhaustion.
• After=network-online.target so the app starts when the network is ready.

Logging#

• journald: Use StandardOutput=journal and StandardError=journal; query with journalctl -u myapp -f.

Systemd gives you a consistent way to run and debug services across environments.