Book Image

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd

4.5 (2)
Book Image

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd

4.5 (2)

Overview of this book

Linux Service Management Made Easy with systemd will provide you with an in-depth understanding of systemd, so that you can set up your servers securely and efficiently.This is a comprehensive guide for Linux administrators that will help you get the best of systemd, starting with an explanation of the fundamentals of systemd management.You’ll also learn how to edit and create your own systemd units, which will be particularly helpful if you need to create custom services or timers and add features or security to an existing service. Next, you'll find out how to analyze and fix boot-up challenges and set system parameters. An overview of cgroups that'll help you control system resource usage for both processes and users will also be covered, alongside a practical demonstration on how cgroups are structured, spotting the differences between cgroups Version 1 and 2, and how to set resource limits on both. Finally, you'll learn about the systemd way of performing time-keeping, networking, logging, and login management. You'll discover how to configure servers accurately and gather system information to analyze system security and performance. By the end of this Linux book, you’ll be able to efficiently manage all aspects of a server running the systemd init system.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Section 1: Using systemd
12
Section 2: Understanding cgroups
16
Section 3: Logging, Timekeeping, Networking, and Booting

Understanding polkit

PolicyKit and polkit aren't part of the systemd ecosystem, but systemd-logind does provide access to polkit functionality. PolicyKit was a Red Hat innovation that came on the scene quite a few years ago, and it could be used on various Unix-like operating systems. In 2012, a new version was released with the brand new name, polkit. The developers changed the name as a reminder that this is a whole new code base that isn't compatible with the older version.

The polkit service is similar to sudo in that it allows a normally non-privileged user to perform certain privileged tasks. There is, however, a big difference between the two.

The sudo utility is quite easy to configure, and you can easily grant pretty much any admin privilege or privileges to any user. When you install the operating system, you'll have full sudo privileges for yourself, and nobody else will have any. On the other hand, polkit comes pre-configured with a set of administrative...