Introduction

Services can be created in Linux using systemd services. Custom unit configuration files created by the system administrator can be made under the ‘/etc/systemd/system’ directory and then managed using the systemctl tool.

Practical Example

I want to create a systemd service for a Palworld server.

Create systemd service:
vim /etc/systemd/system/palworld.service

Contents of ‘palworld.service’:

[Unit]
Description=Palworld Server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=steam
Group=steam

WorkingDirectory=/home/steam/Steam/steamapps/common/PalServer
ExecStart=/home/steam/Steam/steamapps/common/PalServer/PalServer.sh

TimeoutStartSec=120
Restart=always
RestartSec=5s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After=network.target delays start until networking is up; Restart=always relaunches the process if it exits, and RestartSec sets the delay between attempts.

Reload systemd:
systemctl daemon-reload

Enable service:
systemctl enable palworld.service

Start service:
systemctl start palworld.service

systemctl enable --now palworld.service enables and starts in a single step.

Managing the Service

Check status:
systemctl status palworld.service

Stop / restart:
systemctl stop palworld.service
systemctl restart palworld.service

Disable (stop it starting at boot):
systemctl disable palworld.service

Follow live logs:
journalctl -u palworld.service -f

After editing a unit file, always run systemctl daemon-reload before restarting the service.

References

• https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.service.html