Linux services, Docker

Introduction to Linux services management

A variety of services run continuously on a Linux background, such as network and system services. Services running on Linux are also known as daemons, which refers to a group of processes working on the back-end.

The systemd is a software suite of tools adopted by most of the modern Linux distributions. All system tasks can be controlled through systemd. The process can be started or ended using this tool, and all enabled and disabled services information can also be listed with systemd.

List services using `systemctl`

The easiest way to list services on Linux, when you are on a systemd system, is to use the systemctl command followed by list-units. You can specify the --type=service option in order to restrict the results to services only.

systemctl list-units --type=service

In order to list all services, both active and inactive, you have to use the “systemctl list-units” command followed by the “–all” option:

systemctl list-units --type=service --all

Start a service

systemctl start [service_name]

Stop a service

systemctl stop [service_name]

Enable starting the service when the system boots

systemctl enable [service_name]

Disable starting the service when the system boots

systemctl disable [service_name]

Check service status

systemctl status [service_name]

View logs produced by services

The logs produced by various services are saved by systemd via journald daemon. To see the logs that the journald daemon has collected, use the journalctl command.

When used alone, every journal entry that is in the system will be displayed within a pager (usually less) for you to browse. The oldest entries will be up top:

journalctl

You will likely have pages and pages of data to scroll through, which can be tens or hundreds of thousands of lines long if systemd has been on your system for a long while. This demonstrates how much data is available in the journal database.

View logs from the current boot

Adding -b flag to the journalctl will filter the logs, showing only the data logged since last system reboot:

journalctl -b

View logs produced by a specific service

journalctl -u [service_name]

Creating own services in Linux

At times you create a script and then you want to have the scripts controlled by systemd or in some cases you wish to have the scripts getting restarted by itself when it is killed due to some reason. In such cases systemd in Linux helps to configure services which can be managed.

Create a file named [service_name].service in /etc/systemd/system using the following template:

[Unit]
Description=<description about this service>

[Service]
User=<user e.g. root>
WorkingDirectory=<directory_of_script e.g. /root>
ExecStart=<script which needs to be executed>
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

For Python specific projects which include virtual environment:

[Unit]
Description=<project description>

[Service]
User=<user e.g. root>
WorkingDirectory=<path to your project directory containing your python script>
ExecStart=/home/user/.virtualenv/bin/python main.py
Restart=always
# replace /home/user/.virtualenv/bin/python with your virtualenv and main.py with your script

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload the service files to include the new service:
```
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
```

Start your service:

sudo systemctl start your-service.service

🛠🔥 Task 1 🛠🔥

Write a Python application that uses click library. The CLI (command line interface) of the application should accept a path to some file and time in seconds (let’s call it n here). The application should write a random number, along with the current time to the given file every n seconds.

Write a service file that will run your application. Try adding couple of print statements in your code so you can check if the logs are collected properly. Enable and start your new service. Check the status and the logs. Try rebooting your system. The service should start automatically.

You may want to create a virtual environment (venv) and install the click library in it.

Finish by stopping and disabling the service. Remove the service file from /etc/systemd/system

Docker

Installation

It may not be required in the lab.

Remove older versions of Docker:

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc

Update and install required packages:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release

Add Docker’s official GPG key:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg

Set up stable Docker repository:

echo \
    "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
    $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

The above steps and further documentation is also available here.

Docker commands

List Docker images

docker images

List all Docker containers

docker ps -a

Start Docker container

docker start <CONTAINER NAME>

Execute an interactive bash shell on the container

docker exec -it <CONTAINER NAME> bash

Copy file from host to container

docker cp path/to/file/on/host <CONTAINER NAME>:path/to/file/in/container

Copy file from container to host

docker cp <CONTAINER NAME>:path/to/file/in/container path/to/file/on/host

🛠🔥 Task 2 🛠🔥

Read through Docker’s get started (10 parts in total). Contenerize the application from the previous task. The application should use bind mounts to write to a file located in the host file system.

HINT 1: You can use Python image as a base for your app image.
HINT 2: You can install required packages (click in this case) globally, using pip during the image building process.

Run the application and check the logs. Try enabling autostart with system boot for your container.