Before You Begin
This tutorial shows you how to set up the systemd
service
manager on an Oracle Linux 8 system to ensure that services and processes
that are started by a user continue after the user's session has
ended.
Background
Systemd
is a software suite that is designed to replace the
init
system that is used to bootstrap userspace and
manage user processes on Linux systems. Systemd
is more robust and can replace existing daemons and utilities for user
management, login sessions, and networking.
By default, services and processes that are started and owned by a user are terminated when that user's login session ends. The loginctl command can be used to change this default behavior.
What Do You Need?
- Any system with Oracle Linux 8 installed
Enable processes to continue by using the loginctl utility
Use the loginctl utility to change the default behavior for the users that you specify, for example:
$ sudo loginctl enable-linger user
To verify that the setting has been applied, check for a file with the same name as the
user in the /var/lib/systemd/linger
directory.
Enable processes to continue for specified users by using the logind.conf
file
Edit the /etc/systemd/logind.conf
file by entering a space-separated list of users for the
KillExcludeUsers
parameter. The configuration ensures that user-owned services and processes continue for these users, for example:
KillExcludeUsers=user1 user2 user3
Enable processes to continue for all users by using the logind.conf
file
Open the /etc/systemd/logind.conf
file for editing and
uncomment the KillUserProcesses
setting as follows:
KillUserProcesses=no
To reinstate the previous behavior, modify the KillOnlyUsers
setting by
specifying a space-separated list of the selected users, for
example:
KillOnlyUsers=user1 user2 user3
Want to Learn More?
- Systemd documentation: https://systemd.io/
logind.conf(5)
manual page, also at https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/logind.conf.html- Oracle Linux Documentation
Oracle Linux: Configure Systemd to Enable User Processes to Continue to Run After Logout
F29114_04
October 2020
Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
This tutorial provides instructions to configure Systemd services to keep running after users log out on Oracle Linux 8.
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