<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.special</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>
for details about these target units.</para>
+ <para>systemd only keeps a minimal set of units loaded into memory. Specifically, the only units that are kept
+ loaded into memory are those for which at least one of the following conditions is true:</para>
+
+ <orderedlist>
+ <listitem><para>It is in an active, activating, deactivating or failed state (i.e. in any unit state except for <literal>inactive</literal>)</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>It has a job queued for it</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>It is a dependency of some sort of at least one other unit that is loaded into memory</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>It has some form of resource still allocated (e.g. a service unit that is inactive but for which
+ a process is still lingering that ignored the request to be terminated)</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>It has been pinned into memory programmatically by a D-Bus call</para></listitem>
+ </orderedlist>
+
+ <para>systemd will automatically and implicitly load units from disk — if they are not loaded yet — as soon as
+ operations are requested for them. Thus, in many respects, the fact whether a unit is loaded or not is invisible to
+ clients. Use <command>systemctl list-units --all</command> to comprehensively list all units currently loaded. Any
+ unit for which none of the conditions above applies is promptly unloaded. Note that when a unit is unloaded from
+ memory its accounting data is flushed out too. However, this data is generally not lost, as a journal log record
+ is generated declaring the consumed resources whenever a unit shuts down.</para>
+
<para>Processes systemd spawns are placed in individual Linux
control groups named after the unit which they belong to in the
private systemd hierarchy. (see <ulink
verify that it makes sense, fixing it if possible, and only
failing if it really cannot work.</para>
+ <para>Note that transactions are generated independently of a unit's
+ state at runtime, hence, for example, if a start job is requested on an
+ already started unit, it will still generate a transaction and wake up any
+ inactive dependencies (and cause propagation of other jobs as per the
+ defined relationships). This is because the enqueued job is at the time of
+ execution compared to the target unit's state and is marked successful and
+ complete when both satisfy. However, this job also pulls in other
+ dependencies due to the defined relationships and thus leads to, in our
+ our example, start jobs for any of those inactive units getting queued as
+ well.</para>
+
<para>systemd contains native implementations of various tasks
that need to be executed as part of the boot process. For example,
it sets the hostname or configures the loopback network device. It
<varlistentry>
<term><constant>SIGINT</constant></term>
- <listitem><para>Upon receiving this signal the systemd system
- manager will start the
- <filename>ctrl-alt-del.target</filename> unit. This is mostly
- equivalent to <command>systemctl start ctrl-alt-del.target
- --job-mode=replace-irreversible</command>. If this signal is
- received more than 7 times per 2s, an immediate reboot is
- triggered. Note that pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del on the console
- will trigger this signal. Hence, if a reboot is hanging,
- pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del more than 7 times in 2s is a relatively
- safe way to trigger an immediate reboot.</para>
+ <listitem><para>Upon receiving this signal the systemd system manager will start the
+ <filename>ctrl-alt-del.target</filename> unit. This is mostly equivalent to
+ <command>systemctl start ctrl-alt-del.target --job-mode=replace-irreversible</command>. If
+ this signal is received more than 7 times per 2s, an immediate reboot is triggered. Note
+ that pressing
+ <keycombo><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>Alt</keycap><keycap>Del</keycap></keycombo> on the
+ console will trigger this signal. Hence, if a reboot is hanging, pressing
+ <keycombo><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>Alt</keycap><keycap>Del</keycap></keycombo> more than
+ 7 times in 2 seconds is a relatively safe way to trigger an immediate reboot.</para>
<para>systemd user managers treat this signal the same way as
<constant>SIGTERM</constant>.</para></listitem>
<term><varname>quiet</varname></term>
<listitem><para>Turn off status output at boot, much like
- <varname>systemd.show_status=false</varname> would. Note that
+ <varname>systemd.show_status=no</varname> would. Note that
this option is also read by the kernel itself and disables
kernel log output. Passing this option hence turns off the
usual output from both the system manager and the kernel.
projects / thirdparty / systemd.git / blobdiff