Services and logs

What a service is

Understand long-running background programs and how systemd represents them as units with dependencies and state.

8 minute lesson

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A service is a program that runs in the background, often starting during boot and waiting for work.

Ubuntu uses systemd to manage services and other units. A unit file describes how to start a program, its dependencies, restart behavior, and installation target.

Do not confuse a running service with an enabled service. Running describes now. Enabled describes whether it should start during boot.

Lesson completed

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