Systemd and Modern Linux Service Management
Run services reliably with systemd: units, dependencies, and resource limits.
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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.
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