From 157cb4337b83359267050bff43c1ad39b0303f10 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lennart Poettering Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2022 17:27:29 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] systemctl: clarify that "status" is about the most recent invocation of a service And point people to "journalctl --unit=" for information of prior runs. Inspired by: #24159 --- man/systemctl.xml | 37 ++++++++++++++++++------------------- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-) diff --git a/man/systemctl.xml b/man/systemctl.xml index 483db5179c9..df41954ab1b 100644 --- a/man/systemctl.xml +++ b/man/systemctl.xml @@ -217,25 +217,24 @@ Sun 2017-02-26 20:57:49 EST 2h 3min left Sun 2017-02-26 11:56:36 EST 6h ago , , or are used, units are additionally filtered by the TYPE and ACTIVE state. - This function is intended to generate human-readable - output. If you are looking for computer-parsable output, - use show instead. By default, this - function only shows 10 lines of output and ellipsizes - lines to fit in the terminal window. This can be changed - with and , - see above. In addition, journalctl - --unit=NAME or - journalctl - --user-unit=NAME use - a similar filter for messages and might be more - convenient. - - - systemd implicitly loads units as necessary, so just running the status will - attempt to load a file. The command is thus not useful for determining if something was already loaded or - not. The units may possibly also be quickly unloaded after the operation is completed if there's no reason - to keep it in memory thereafter. - + This function is intended to generate human-readable output. If you are looking for + computer-parsable output, use show instead. By default, this function only + shows 10 lines of output and ellipsizes lines to fit in the terminal window. This can be changed + with and , see above. In addition, + journalctl --unit=NAME or journalctl + --user-unit=NAME use a similar filter for messages and might + be more convenient. + + Note that this operation only displays runtime status, i.e. information about + the current invocation of the unit (if it is running) or the most recent invocation (if it is not + running anymore, and has not been released from memory). Information about earlier invocations, + invocations from previous system boots, or prior invocations that have already been released from + memory may be retrieved via journalctl --unit=. + + systemd implicitly loads units as necessary, so just running the status + will attempt to load a file. The command is thus not useful for determining if something was + already loaded or not. The units may possibly also be quickly unloaded after the operation is + completed if there's no reason to keep it in memory thereafter. Example output from systemctl status -- 2.47.3