systemd units: what failed, why, and every action previewed
A terminal UI for systemd. It opens on what failed — failed units sort first, always — and puts the journal that explains why one key away. Timers show what is scheduled and when it last fired; the boot view shows what made the last boot slow.
The unit list merges list-units --all with list-unit-files, so a unit that is installed but has never started is visible too. Every read works as an ordinary user, so the tool opens instantly and without a password; only an action escalates, and only behind a confirm dialog showing the exact systemctl command line.
Run tui-systemd --demo for a sample machine with a couple of interesting failures. Nothing touches your system.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| j / enter | Journal for the selected unit |
| f | In the journal: follow, re-reading every 2s |
| s / x | Start / stop the selected unit |
| r / l | Restart / reload the selected unit |
| e / D | Enable / disable the selected unit |
| m / M | Mask / unmask the selected unit |
| d | Reload the systemd manager (daemon-reload) |
| tab | Cycle the state filter: all, failed, active, inactive |
| / | Filter by name, description or state |
| t | Timers |
| b | Boot times, slowest first |
| ? | Help |
| q | Quit |
Press ? inside the tool for the full help screen, which is generated from the same action table as the key map.
This tool is a face on the program below, so its version matters.Tested is not a claim: a version lands there only after the tool's own suite passed against it on a real machine in the lab, and the run is kept as evidence in the repository. At startup the tool probes the backend once and says what it found in its header — a version nobody has run against is shown as(untested) in the warning colour, one older than the minimum as (below minimum) in the error colour. Neither stops it: the backend still refuses what it cannot do, in its own words.
systemctl230systemctl --versiontimerssince 250boot-blamesince 230systemd <250list-timers has no JSON output, so the timers view is not offered: the text table cannot be parsed without mangling its timestamps
systemd <245list-units --plain is absent on some builds, so the unit list falls back to the decorated output
Once per machine, then every tool in the family is one pacman away.
$ curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tui.tools/install.sh | shA family whose whole promise is preview before you run is not going to insist you pipe a script into a shell. These are the commands that script runs.
$ curl -fsSL -o /tmp/tui-tools.asc https://pkgs.tui.tools/pubkey.asc
sudo pacman-key --add /tmp/tui-tools.asc
sudo pacman-key --lsign-key \
"$(gpg --show-keys --with-colons /tmp/tui-tools.asc | awk -F: '/^fpr:/{print $10; exit}')"
printf '[tui-tools]\nServer = https://pkgs.tui.tools/arch/$arch\n' \
| sudo tee -a /etc/pacman.conf
sudo pacman -Sy$ sudo pacman -S tui-systemdUpgrades then arrive with the rest of your system updates.
$ paru -S tui-systemd-binThe -bin package installs the released static binary.
Once per machine, then every tool in the family is one apt away.
$ curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tui.tools/install.sh | shA family whose whole promise is preview before you run is not going to insist you pipe a script into a shell. These are the commands that script runs.
$ sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tui.tools/pubkey.asc \
| sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/tui-tools.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/tui-tools.gpg] https://pkgs.tui.tools/deb stable main" \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/tui-tools.list
sudo apt update$ sudo apt install tui-systemdUpgrades then arrive with the rest of your system updates.
Once per machine, then every tool in the family is one dnf away.
$ curl -fsSL https://pkgs.tui.tools/install.sh | shA family whose whole promise is preview before you run is not going to insist you pipe a script into a shell. These are the commands that script runs.
$ sudo rpm --import https://pkgs.tui.tools/pubkey.asc
sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/yum.repos.d/tui-tools.repo https://pkgs.tui.tools/rpm/tui-tools.repo
sudo dnf makecache$ sudo dnf install tui-systemdUpgrades then arrive with the rest of your system updates.
Needs the tui-tools repository, a one-time setup you do once per machine.
$ sudo zypper install tui-systemdThe rpm repository is shared with dnf; zypper support is not tested yet.
$ curl -fsSL https://github.com/tui-tools/tui-systemd/releases/download/v0.1.1/tui-systemd_0.1.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz | tar -xz tui-systemd
sudo install -m0755 tui-systemd /usr/local/bin/tui-systemd$ curl -fsSL https://github.com/tui-tools/tui-systemd/releases/download/v0.1.1/tui-systemd_0.1.1_linux_arm64.tar.gz | tar -xz tui-systemd
sudo install -m0755 tui-systemd /usr/local/bin/tui-systemdOne static binary. Verify it against checksums.txt from the same release.
$ git clone https://github.com/tui-tools/tui-systemd
cd tui-systemd && make build
sudo install -m0755 bin/tui-systemd /usr/local/bin/tui-systemdNeeds Go 1.26 or newer.
Every change is shown as an exact command line and confirmed before it runs. The dialog and the runner receive the same value, so the preview cannot drift from what executes.
Only actions escalate: start, stop, restart, reload, enable, disable, mask, unmask and daemon-reload. Every read — the unit list, the journal, timers and boot times — works as an ordinary user. Escalation goes through sudo -n, which never prompts.
Nothing keeps running after you quit, and nothing is installed to run later. The system is the source of truth; the tool re-reads it after every change.
The tool opens no network connection of its own. No telemetry, no update check, no phone home.
Released statically linked, with no runtime dependencies to install.
Releases carry SHA-256 checksums but no signature. Verify the checksum, and read this as the open item it is.
Report a security issue privately, through GitHub's private vulnerability reporting on the repository's Security tab. The family-wide policy, and what counts as in scope, is on the security page.
| File | Size | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
| checksums.txt | 800 B | — |
| tui-systemd-0.1.1-1-aarch64.pkg.tar.zst | 1.6 MB | 15812a8e8091f1550c0619571e93aa98f06d45c1b5d0e109bdca23845989b139 |
| tui-systemd-0.1.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst | 1.8 MB | 2c9669ade34f89076c441d6782a92420259fb36b12e6b1d4ea7df4be4b4fe0ef |
| tui-systemd-0.1.1-1.aarch64.rpm | 1.6 MB | fe6b868729343a3a1a53ad9b22202d8811b811b06a854f79d67dccc081740590 |
| tui-systemd-0.1.1-1.x86_64.rpm | 1.8 MB | 90b934a2ace936d028e8db96b05164e0d105417aa2f9666208c091060e53174c |
| tui-systemd_0.1.1_amd64.deb | 1.8 MB | a2fbad2130f1c9cc5be064f13054043264877503142fb97aa557c54af8dc4179 |
| tui-systemd_0.1.1_arm64.deb | 1.6 MB | f0c6ac599e47e9b7fab1c3a92da40a95882582790beab3060488816c8982d760 |
| tui-systemd_0.1.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz | 1.8 MB | 6bd47534c81e614b0ac47a8f93e06641b6e7224edf723419371357358d5e5eb7 |
| tui-systemd_0.1.1_linux_arm64.tar.gz | 1.6 MB | f0d3d9c39a0eb4451dc80ff238a0ce2ef4aa8fc6cd3b3502be690fc3d2e61295 |
Every release ships a checksums.txt. Download it next to the archive and run sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing. See verifying a download.
## Changelog * 55c26e36517200cf3eb916a0d859a6ab9b4903c9 Add --check, a non-interactive read path, and a backend smoke test * 52960eba1d2c6411dd6c5f4a90bf856a7659ef01 Add tool.json and generate the README Install section from it * 37182a9e794425cd61069a1baa6d6ceb8e7af1a4 Ask systemd what it can do instead of assuming * c14626c0231c384400b90851f672686181f7dee6 Bump the github-actions group with 5 updates (#1) * 1e83fa96c2b7ed0e5754df7c78392b5cb68c71aa Hold this tool to the family's lint bar * ac2444ed78c1bb6f0663e55f3c2e0714eb00f2ed Packages are available from pkgs.tui.tools * 7e53d37debbd473656a1fd2dbea0be8983c8914c Re-pin the kit at v0.1.3 for the help panel width fix * 7ad6994385857efd512dbd079c5844ce915e8608 Re-pin the kit at v0.2.3 * 3a933fd3a85dafb9a423996d7bbcaeefa830871e Ship the tool as a .deb, an .rpm and a pacman package
## Changelog * 442fa7abb0c573356df05ae4c54e973473a7ad2f Add tui-systemd v0.1, a TUI for systemd units