Boot Systems Into Different Targets Manually

General Information

About this page/how-to/script.

Unit configuration file locations

• /usr/lib/systemd/system ⇒ system unit configuration files (default with system)
• /etc/systemd/system ⇒ additional configuration files (downloaded or custom)

Show available unit types

systemctl -t help

Some common targets

• poweroff.target ⇒ power off the system
• emergency.target ⇒ single user (root), read only root file system, do not mount other file systems, no network.
  • Used if the system cannot be repaired in rescue.target
• rescue.target ⇒ single user environment (root), mount file systems read/write, with minimum services loaded. (no network)
• multi-user.target ⇒ Multi-user non-graphical, with all file systems and networking
• graphical.target ⇒ GUI environment, multi-user, with all file systems and networking
• reboot.target ⇒ reboot the system

Current target

systemctl get-default

Set default to graphical target

systemctl set-default graphical.target

List loaded unit files (systemctl) of type target (–type=target) whether they are active or not (–all)

systemctl --type=target --all

• systemctl list-units ⇒ “list-units” is the default command to systemctl if none specified
• –type=target ⇒ show loaded, active units of the target type
• –all ⇒ show all loaded unit files, even if they are not active

List all installed unit files on the system

systemctl list-unit-files

View a target's dependencies

systemctl list-dependencies multi-user.target

• List what will start upon entering multi-user.target

Move from graphical target to multi-user (command prompt)

systemctl isolate multi-user.target

• Stops all GUI services, goes to command line login prompt