systemd Alternatives to the service, chkconfig and init Commands

Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: systemd 252 to 259 on AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux 9 and 10, RHEL 9 and 10, Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04, Debian 13

CentOS 6 and older systems managed services with service, chkconfig and SysV init runlevels. Since CentOS 7, and on every current distribution, systemd does this job with systemctl. The old commands may still exist as wrappers, but they do not cover everything. This page lists the systemd equivalent of each old command.

Starting and stopping services

• service nginx start → systemctl start nginx
• service nginx stop → systemctl stop nginx
• service nginx restart → systemctl restart nginx
• service nginx reload → systemctl reload nginx
• service nginx condrestart → systemctl try-restart nginx (restart only if running)
• service nginx status → systemctl status nginx
• service --status-all → systemctl list-units --type=service

Starting services at boot

• chkconfig nginx on → systemctl enable nginx (add --now to start it at once too)
• chkconfig nginx off → systemctl disable nginx
• chkconfig nginx → systemctl is-enabled nginx
• chkconfig --list → systemctl list-unit-files --type=service
• Block a service completely, so nothing can start it → systemctl mask nginx (undo with unmask)

Runlevels become targets

• Runlevel 0 → poweroff.target (systemctl poweroff)
• Runlevel 1, single user → rescue.target
• Runlevel 3, multi-user text → multi-user.target
• Runlevel 5, graphical → graphical.target
• Runlevel 6 → reboot.target (systemctl reboot)

systemctl get-default                     # like reading id: in /etc/inittab
systemctl set-default multi-user.target   # boot to text mode
systemctl isolate rescue.target           # switch now, like "init 1"

/etc/inittab is no longer used, and runlevel only reports the nearest equivalent.

Your own start scripts

Old init scripts in /etc/init.d/ should be replaced by a systemd unit file. See how to add a custom script to systemd.

Logs

Each service's messages go to the journal: journalctl -u nginx. See useful journalctl examples.

Official documentation: systemctl and systemd.special (targets).