Securing systemd Services

WHAT?
systemd service les are most often used to operate one or more sys-
temd services, such as starting, stopping or viewing the status of the
service. Besides this, the service les can limit the privileges of the ser-
vice they control.

WHY?
Using security options of systemd service les increases the securi-
ty of the service they control. This adds another security layer of the
whole operating system.

EFFORT
It takes less than 15 minutes to understand how systemd can control
the security level of systemd services.

REQUIREMENTS

Good knowledge of the systemd environment

root privileges

Publication Date: 09 Jan 2025

Contents
1 Secure systemd services 3

1 Securing systemd Services

 2 Analyzing the security level 3

3 Techniques of securing 4

4 For more information 5

5 Legal Notice 6

A GNU Free Documentation License 6

2 Securing systemd Services

1 Secure systemd services
Linux increases its security by separating privileges between individual components
of the operating system. System services already have a default level of security. For
example, their processes run under their own user ID, which limits the changes they
can perform on the system.
The default level of privilege separation provides only a basic protection. Services
can still perform as many changes as normal local users, though not as many as
root . A higher level of system security requires limiting what services can perform
and prevents them from certain privileges that normal users are allowed to use.

1.1 How does securing services with systemd work?

There are several methods to secure processes and applications that you can use simultaneously.
For example, confining with SELinux or AppArmor is recommended. systemd can apply addi-
tional restrictions to local services by using technologies included in the kernel. These restric-
tions are activated by adding specific options to the systemd service definition and restarting
the service.

1.2 Benefits of securing services

Securing systemd services increases the security of the whole operating system and protects
sensitive data contained on its le system.

2 Analyzing the security level

systemd can apply additional restrictions to local services by using technologies in-
cluded in the kernel. These restrictions are activated by adding specific options to
the systemd service definition and restarting the service.
Use the systemd-analyze security command to analyze security settings of specified sys-
temd service units. If unit names are not specified, the command inspects security settings of all
currently loaded service units. We recommend running the command after a specific systemd

3 Securing systemd Services

unit le is updated. The command calculates an overall “exposure level” that is an estimation
in the range 0.0 to 10.0, showing how exposed a service is security-wise. High values indicate
little loose security provisions, while low exposure levels indicate tight security restrictions.

> systemd-analyze security systemd-logind.service

NAME DESCRIPTION EXPOSURE
✗ PrivateNetwork= Service has access to the host's network 0.5
✗ User=/DynamicUser= Service runs as root user 0.4
✗ DeviceAllow= Service has no device ACL 0.2
✓ IPAddressDeny= Service blocks all IP address ranges
...
→ Overall exposure level for systemd-logind.service: 4.1 OK #

3 Techniques of securing

This topic introduces commonly used techniques that systemd offers to protect ser-
vices. To apply the changes, add the required option to the service definition le
and restart the specific service.

PrivateNetwork=yes
This option isolates the service and its processes from networking. This prevents external
network requests from reaching the protected service. Be aware that certain services re-
quire the network to be operational.

PrivateTmp=yes
This option provides the service with a private /tmp isolated from the host system's /tmp .
The shared host /tmp directory is a major source of security problems, such as symlink
attacks and DoS /tmp temporary les.

InaccessibleDirectories=/home
This option makes the specified directories inaccessible to the service. This option narrows
the range of directories that can be read or modified by the service, for example, to secure
users' private les.

ReadOnlyDirectories=/var
This option makes the specified directories inaccessible for writing to the service. The
example configuration makes the whole tree below /var read-only. This option prevents
the service from damaging the system les.

4 Securing systemd Services

CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_CHOWN CAP_KILL
This option restricts the kernel capabilities that a service can retain. In the example above,
only the CAP_CHOWN and CAP_KILL capabilities are retained by the service, and the ser-
vice and any processes it creates cannot obtain any other capabilities, not even via setuid
binaries.

Tip
To easily identify which processes on your system retain which capabilities, use the
pscap tool from the libcap-ng-utils package.

Tip
The ~ prefix inverts the meaning of the option—instead of listing all capabilities
that the service retains, you may list the ones it does not retain:

...
[Service]
CapabilityBoundingSet=~CAP_SYS_PTRACE
...

LimitNPROC=1, LimitFSIZE=0
You can use resource limits to apply security limits on services. Two of them can dis-
able specific operating system features: RLIMIT_NPROC=1 disables precess forking, while
RLIMIT_FSIZE=0 disables creating non-empty les on the le system.

DeviceAllow=/dev/null rw
This option limits access to /dev/null , disallowing access to any other device nodes.

4 For more information

All security options are described in systemd 's man pages. Refer to man 5 systemd.exec .

The list of currently defined kernel capabilities is available in man 7 capabilities .

5 Securing systemd Services

 Enabling and disabling systemd services is described in https://documenta-
tion.suse.com/smart/linux/html/
reference-systemctl-enable-disable-services/reference-systemctl-enable-disable-ser-
vices.html .

Managing systemd targets with systemctl is described

in https://documentation.suse.com/smart/linux/html/reference-managing-systemd-tar-
gets-systemctl/reference-systemctl-managing-targets.html .

Sending termination signals to systemd services is described

in https://documentation.suse.com/smart/linux/html/task-send-termination-signals-sys-
temd/task-send-termination-signals-systemd.html .

Starting and stopping systemd services is described

in https://documentation.suse.com/smart/linux/html/reference-systemctl-start-stop-ser-
vices/reference-systemctl-start-stop-services.html .

5 Legal Notice
Copyright© 2006–2025 SUSE LLC and contributors. All rights reserved.
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All information found in this book has been compiled with utmost attention to detail. However,
this does not guarantee complete accuracy. Neither SUSE LLC, its affiliates, the authors, nor the
translators shall be held liable for possible errors or the consequences thereof.

A GNU Free Documentation License

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor,
Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of
this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

6 Securing systemd Services

0. PREAMBLE

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7 Securing systemd Services

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8 Securing systemd Services

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9 Securing systemd Services

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10 Securing systemd Services

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11 Securing systemd Services

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12 Securing systemd Services

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13 Securing systemd Services

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14 Securing systemd Services