Systemd service failing to start

A failed systemd service tells you that it failed but rarely why, and after enough failures the system stops trying, so it can refuse to start even once the fault is fixed. 2501 finds the real cause, fixes it and brings the service back up, all within limits you set.

A service is down, and its configuration, its dependencies, its permissions or the system itself could each be responsible. The status message collapses all of those into a single word, and the last error shown is often a consequence rather than the cause. A lot of time goes into fixing the right thing and then finding the service still will not start.

What 2501 does

The services specialty investigates the service and the record around its failure, finds the underlying fault rather than stopping at the last error, fixes it and restarts the service. It confirms the service stays up rather than counting the restart as success. If the system has stopped retrying after repeated failures, that is cleared as part of the fix, because a correct configuration on a service that still refuses to start is not a resolved ticket. A fix that goes beyond a simple correction, or a cause that is not clear, waits for a person's approval.

You stay in control

• You choose the level: investigate only, act after a person confirms, or act on its own within your rules. The level is set per specialty, not per ticket.
• Your rules apply: which services are never restarted unattended, and which change windows apply.
• Some actions are never allowed: blacklisted commands and hosts stay out of reach, whatever a ticket asks for.

Frequently asked

Why does the service not start even though I fixed the problem? After repeated failures the system can stop accepting new start requests until that state is cleared.

Is the last error the real cause? Often not. It is frequently a knock-on effect of an earlier fault, which is why 2501 looks further back.

Can it diagnose without restarting anything? Yes. In investigate-only mode it reports the cause and restarts nothing.

Related

• Services Manager
• Service failing on a broken dependency