Introduction

A lightweight Python wrapper for the systemctl command, designed for use in Python-based service managers, admin tools, and dashboards.

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Features

• Query service status, PID, and enable status
• Start, stop, and restart services
• Enable and disable services
• Structured output, clean API
• Parses and interprets systemctl output

IMPORTANT NOTE: All systemctl operations except for sysemctl status require root access. This module uses sudo to deal with this fact. It’s recommended that you use a fine-grained sudo configuration. For example, the following two lines in the /etc/sudoers file allow the sally user to start and stop the db4e services without prompting for a password to make your Python project run smoothly.

sally ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl start db4e
sally ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl stop db4e

The above sudo configuration script that sally runs that uses this module will be successful in starting and stopping the db4e service, but will fail if enable() or disable() are attempted.

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Installation

pip install systemctl

Or clone locally:

git clone https://github.com/NadimGhaznavi/systemctl

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Example Usage

from systemctl.systemctl import systemctl

svc = systemctl('db4e')

if not svc.installed():
    print("Service not installed")
elif not svc.active():
    print("Service is stopped. Starting...")
    svc.start()
else:
    print(f"Service is running with PID {svc.pid()}")

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Methods

svc.start()          # Start service
svc.stop()           # Stop service
svc.restart()        # Restart service
svc.enable()         # Enable service startup at boot time
svc.disable()        # Disable service startup at boot time
sve.service_name()   # Get/Set the service name
svc.running()        # Check if the service is running
svc.enabled()        # Check if the service is enabled
svc.installed()      # Check if the service is present
svc.pid()            # The PID of the running process
svc.stdout()         # Raw systemctl stdout from systemctl
svc.stderr()         # Raw systemctl stderr from systemctl
svc.timeout()        # Set the timeout value for systemctl

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Sphinx Docs

Low-level documentation generated by Sphinx and published to ReadTheDocs.

• SystemCtl on ReadTheDocs

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License

GPL v3 - See LICENSE.txt

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Created and maintained by Nadim-Daniel Ghaznavi. This module was developed as a component for the Database 4 Everything project.