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Managing systemd services

Beginning with Jenkins 2.332.1 and Jenkins 2.335, the Linux package installers use systemd to manage services. The RPM and deb package installers migrate configuration settings from System V init to systemd overrides.

Viewing service configurations

The current service configuration of the Jenkins service as configured by the package installers and any overrides can be viewed with:

$ systemctl cat jenkins
# /etc/systemd/system/jenkins.service
#
# This file is managed by systemd(1). Do NOT edit this file manually!
# To override these settings, run:
#
#     systemctl edit jenkins
#
# For more information about drop-in files, see:
#
#     https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html
#

[Unit]
Description=Jenkins Continuous Integration Server
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=notify
NotifyAccess=main
ExecStart=/usr/bin/jenkins
Restart=on-failure
SuccessExitStatus=143

# /etc/systemd/system/jenkins.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
Environment="JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true"

Overriding service configurations

Default service configuration settings are stored in /etc/systemd/system/jenkins.service. Values may be overridden in the override.conf file for the service. Edit the override file with the command:

$ systemctl edit jenkins

The override.conf file is stored at /etc/systemd/system/jenkins.service.d/override.conf and can be used to customize the service. Example content of the override.conf file might include

[Unit]
Description=My Company Jenkins Controller

[Service]

# Add JVM configuration options
Environment="JAVA_OPTS=-Djava.awt.headless=true -XX:+UseStringDeduplication"

# Arbitrary additional arguments to pass to Jenkins.
# Full option list: java -jar jenkins.war --help
Environment="JENKINS_OPTS=--prefix=/jenkins --javaHome=/opt/jdk-11"

# Configuration as code directory
Environment="CASC_JENKINS_CONFIG=/var/lib/jenkins/configuration-as-code/"

Starting services

Once the Jenkins systemd service has been defined, it can be started with:

$ systemctl start jenkins

Stopping services

The Jenkins systemd service can be stopped with:

$ systemctl stop jenkins

Reloading service definitions

After changes to configuration files, the service definition may need to be reloaaded with:

$ systemctl daemon-reload

Reading service logs

Logs for the Jenkins service can be read with the command:

$ journalctl -u jenkins

Pruning service logs

Log files retained by systemd are commonly configured to automatically rotate. If the log files need to be reduced in size, use the command:

$ journalctl --vacuum-size=500M

Going further

Some recommended readings on this subject:

⇑ System Administration
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