dystemctl

systemd emulation for Darwin - provides systemctl and journalctl commands on macOS using launchd.

Installation

Nix (recommended)

# Run directly
nix run github:sielicki/dystemctl#systemctl -- status
nix run github:sielicki/dystemctl#journalctl -- -f

# Install to profile
nix profile install github:sielicki/dystemctl

# Or add to your flake
{
  inputs.dystemctl.url = "github:sielicki/dystemctl";
}
# Then use: inputs.dystemctl.packages.${system}.default

For nix-darwin or home-manager, add the overlay:

{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [ inputs.dystemctl.overlays.default ];
  environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.dystemctl ];
}

Homebrew

# Add the tap
brew tap sielicki/dystemctl https://github.com/sielicki/dystemctl

# Install
brew install dystemctl

Or install directly from the repository:

brew install --HEAD sielicki/dystemctl/dystemctl

pip/uv/uvx

# From PyPI
pip install dystemctl
uv tool install dystemctl

# Or from git for latest
uv tool install git+https://github.com/sielicki/dystemctl.git

Run without installing

uvx --from dystemctl systemctl status
● homebrew.mxcl.emacs-plus@30 - emacs-plus@30
     Loaded: loaded (/opt/homebrew/Cellar/emacs-plus@30/30.2/homebrew.mxcl.emacs-plus@30.plist; enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2026-01-23 22:16:43; 1h 32min ago
   Main PID: 72371 (emacs)
     Memory: 424.6M
        CPU: 0.0%
    Trigger: KeepAlive

Jan 23 23:49:22 dogleg emacs[72371]: Cleaning up the recentf list...done (0 removed)

Usage

systemctl commands

# List all services
systemctl status
systemctl list-units

# Manage services
systemctl start <service>
systemctl stop <service>
systemctl restart <service>
systemctl enable <service>
systemctl disable <service>

# Check status
systemctl status <service>
systemctl is-active <service>
systemctl is-enabled <service>

# View service details
systemctl show <service>
systemctl cat <service>

journalctl commands

# View logs
journalctl -u <service>
journalctl -f                    # Follow logs
journalctl --since "1 hour ago"
journalctl -n 100                # Last 100 lines

# Log management
journalctl --disk-usage
journalctl --vacuum-time 7d      # Delete logs older than 7 days
journalctl --vacuum-size 100M    # Keep logs under 100MB

Additional features

# Import a systemd unit file
systemctl import myservice.service

# Export a launchd service to systemd format
systemctl export com.example.myservice -o myservice.service

# Analyze boot performance
systemctl analyze
systemctl analyze blame

# Run a transient service
systemctl run echo "hello world"

# Validate service files
systemctl verify myservice.plist

Service name resolution

dystemctl supports flexible service name resolution:

# All of these work:
systemctl status com.apple.cups.cupsd
systemctl status cupsd
systemctl status cups

Differences from systemd

• launchd uses on-demand activation rather than explicit dependencies
• Socket activation uses launchd's native socket support
• Timer services use StartInterval or StartCalendarInterval
• Some systemd features (cgroups, namespaces) have no macOS equivalent
• ???? hundreds more. This is a pretty big hack. But for simple muscle-memory, it's pretty usable. YMMV. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Development

# Install dev dependencies
uv sync

# Run tests
uv run pytest

# Run with coverage
uv run pytest --cov=dystemctl

License

MIT