Introduction

A lightweight Python module to interact with systemd services via systemctl, designed for use in Python-based service managers, admin tools, and dashboards.

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Features

• Query service status, PID, and enablement
• 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.

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

So a 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 db4e-systemd

Or clone locally:

git clone https://github.com/NadimGhaznavi/db4esystemd.git
cd db4e-systemd

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Example Usage

from Db4eSystemd.Db4eSystemd import Db4eSystemd

svc = Db4eSystemd('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 = Db4eSystemd('myservice')

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
svc.status()         # Refresh status
svc.active()         # True/False
svc.enabled()        # True/False
svc.installed()      # True/False
svc.pid()            # Integer PID or None
svc.stdout()         # Raw systemctl stdout
svc.stderr()         # Raw systemctl stderr

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License

GPL v3 - See LICENSE.txt

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Created and maintained by Nadim-Daniel Ghaznavi. Part of the Database 4 Everything project.