systemd Pilot

systemd Pilot is a desktop app for managing systemd units on your local machine or remotely over SSH.

Features

• Browse system and user units of every type, with instant search (just start typing)
• Start, stop, restart, enable and disable units
• Read a unit's status, logs, unit file and properties
• Create and edit unit files, optionally enabling and starting new ones
• Manage remote hosts over SSH with a password, a private key or your SSH agent

Install

Download the package for your distribution from the releases page:

Package	Works on
systemd-pilot_*_all.deb	Debian 13+, Ubuntu 24.04+
systemd-pilot-*.noarch.rpm	Fedora
systemd-pilot-*.flatpak	Any distribution with Flatpak
systemd-pilot-*-x86_64.AppImage	Ubuntu 22.04+ and most other x86_64 distributions (no install)

flatpak install --user systemd-pilot-x86_64.flatpak

chmod +x systemd-pilot-*-x86_64.AppImage
./systemd-pilot-*-x86_64.AppImage

On a system without FUSE, run the AppImage with --appimage-extract-and-run.

The AppImage carries its own GTK 4, libadwaita and Python, so it runs on releases too old for the .deb, such as Ubuntu 22.04. On those, and on systems without libGLESv2, it draws with GTK's software (cairo) renderer instead of OpenGL; set GSK_RENDERER to override.

How it works

• This computer: systemd Pilot runs systemctl and journalctl. Changes to system services go through pkexec, so your desktop's polkit dialog asks for the password; the app never sees it. Inside Flatpak, commands run on the host through flatpak-spawn --host.
• Remote hosts: commands run over SSH, and changes use sudo. The sudo password is sent on the command's standard input, never on its command line, and it is kept in memory only for the current connection. Host keys are checked against ~/.ssh/known_hosts, and you are asked to confirm the fingerprint of a host you haven't connected to before. A host set up with a private key authenticates with that key only, not with other agent keys.
• Saved SSH passwords and key passphrases live in your keyring (libsecret). Without a keyring, the app still works but can't remember passwords. Hosts are stored in ~/.config/systemd-pilot/hosts.json. Hosts saved by version 3 are imported automatically.

Build from source

Dependencies (meson and gettext are only needed to build and install):

• meson ≥ 1.0, gettext, glib-compile-resources, glib-compile-schemas
• Python ≥ 3.10, PyGObject, paramiko
• GTK ≥ 4.12, libadwaita ≥ 1.5, libsecret, GtkSourceView 5 (all with GObject introspection data)

On Debian and Ubuntu:

sudo apt install meson gettext libglib2.0-dev-bin desktop-file-utils appstream \
  python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 gir1.2-secret-1 gir1.2-gtksource-5 python3-paramiko

On Fedora:

sudo dnf install meson gettext glib2-devel desktop-file-utils appstream \
  python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita libsecret gtksourceview5 python3-paramiko

Run it straight from the checkout, no build needed:

python3 run.py        # add -v for debug output

Or build and test with meson:

meson setup build
meson compile -C build
meson test -C build
meson devenv -C build python3 -m systemdpilot

Install:

meson setup build --prefix=/usr
meson install -C build

Build the Flatpak:

flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean flatpak-build build-aux/flatpak/io.github.mfat.systemdpilot.json

Build the AppImage (Ubuntu 24.04 host; needs patchelf, wget, and the runtime dependencies above, plus adwaita-icon-theme, librsvg2-common, dconf-gsettings-backend, python3-gi-cairo and python3-pip):

xvfb-run -a packaging/appimage/build-appimage.sh   # writes dist/*.AppImage

Test a built AppImage on the system you run this on (CI does it on Ubuntu 22.04):

dbus-run-session -- xvfb-run -a packaging/appimage/test-appimage.sh dist/*.AppImage

Project layout

src/systemdpilot/
  core/        business logic, no GTK imports
    manager.py      systemd operations (list, control, logs, create units)
    runner.py       command runner interface
    local.py        runs commands on this computer (pkexec, flatpak-spawn)
    ssh.py          runs commands over SSH (sudo, host key checks)
    parsers.py      systemctl/journalctl output parsers
    hosts.py        saved hosts; secrets.py, known_hosts.py
  ui/          GTK 4 / libadwaita interface (.py + .ui templates)
  main.py      Adw.Application
data/          desktop file, metainfo, GSettings schema, icons
po/            translations
tests/         pytest suite for the core, plus a UI smoke test
build-aux/     Flatpak manifest, version check
debian/, packaging/rpm/   distribution packaging

The UI calls into core from worker threads and never builds shell commands itself.

tests/ has pytest tests for core (command construction, parsers, the local and SSH runners, host storage, host keys). They don't need a display. The UI is covered only by tests/smoke_ui.py, which opens each window and dialog and exercises a few flows. It runs in CI under Xvfb.

Releasing

1. Bump the version in meson.build, debian/changelog, packaging/rpm/systemd-pilot.spec, data/systemd-pilot.1 and the <releases> in data/io.github.mfat.systemdpilot.metainfo.xml.in. build-aux/check-version.py verifies that they agree.
2. Tag and push: git tag v4.0.0 && git push origin v4.0.0.

The release workflow builds the .deb, .rpm and Flatpak bundles (x86_64 and aarch64) and attaches them to a GitHub release.

To update the Python modules bundled in the Flatpak, run build-aux/flatpak/update-python-deps.py.

Translations

Add your language code to po/LINGUAS, then:

meson compile -C build systemd-pilot-pot
meson compile -C build systemd-pilot-update-po

Support development

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