systemd for Debian ================== systemd can be installed alongside sysvinit and will not change the behaviour of the system out of the box. This is intentional. To test systemd, add: init=/bin/systemd to the kernel command line and then rebooting, or install the systemd-sysv package. Enabling persistent logging in journald ======================================= To enable persistent logging, create /var/log/journal and set up proper permissions: install -d -g systemd-journal /var/log/journal setfacl -R -nm g:adm:rx,d:g:adm:rx /var/log/journal -- Tollef Fog Heen , Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:43:50 +0200 Debugging boot/shutdown problems ================================ The "debug-shell" service starts a root shell on VT 9 which is available very early during boot and very late during shutdown. You can temporarily enable this when booting the system does not get sufficiently far to get a desktop or even the text console logins (getty), or when shutdown hangs eternally. For boot problems the recommended way is to append "systemd.debug-shell" to the kernel command line in the bootloader. For shutdown problems, run "systemctl start debug-shell" as root, then shut down. WARNING: Please avoid "systemctl enable debug-shell" as this will start the debug shell permanently which is a SECURITY HOLE as it allows unauthenticated and unrestricted root access to your computer if you forget to disable it! Please only enable it if you cannot pass "systemd.debug-shell" to the boot loader for some reason, and then immediately run "systemctl disable debug-shell" after booting. Once the boot/shutdown problem happened, switch to VT9 (Ctrl+Alt+F9). There you can use the usual systemctl or journalctl commands, or any other Linux shell command to list or kill processes. For example, run "systemctl list-jobs" to see what's currently being run, or "systemctl" to find units which are not in the expected state (e. g. "failed" for boot or still "active" during shutdown), and then get more detailled information with "systemctl status -l foo.service" to get a service "foo"'s status and recent logging.