Auto-restart a crashed systemd service

Published: 10 July 2024

With systemd, it is easy to configure a service to automatically restart when it's crashed.

Here's a typical unit file. It's fairly basic, but you get the idea. With this unit, if the service dies or otherwise fails, systemd will leave it alone.

[Unit]
Description=Example Daemon
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/example-service

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Adding the Restart option to the [Service] stanza will tell systemd to instead auto-restart the service when it fails or is killed.

[Unit]
Description=Example Daemon
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

[Service]
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/example-service

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target