Introducing systemd as New Carbonio CE Init System

Starting with Carbonio CE 25.6.0, systemd will become the default service manager on supported distributions RHEL 9 and Ubuntu 24.04. This page walks through the motivations for this change, what systemd brings to the table, how it’s been implemented in Carbonio CE, and how system administrators can interact with the new system.

Why Move to systemd?

As of recent Linux distributions, systemd is the standard for service management and legacy init scripts are deprecated. Carbonio fully supports this shift supplying .service files for each component. This allows you to use systemctl to start, stop, enable, and monitor services, benefiting from systemd robust dependency resolution failure recovery, and centralized logging. After evaluating the current init system and its limitations, the Zextras team identified key opportunities for improvement that systemd helps address:

Faster Boot with Parallel Service Startup

Services starts concurrently, drastically reducing the boot time, ensuring faster system availability and responsiveness, which is crucial for enterprise-grade collaboration platforms like Carbonio CE.

Smarter Dependency Handling

Service dependencies are precisely tracked, starting them in the correct order, reducing race conditions, startup errors, and enhancing reliability.

Unified and Simplified Service Configuration

All services are managed via standardised unit files, which simplifies service configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting.

Built-in Service Monitoring

A native mechanisms allows seamless service supervision, auto-restarts, logging (using the journalctl interface) and fine-grained resource control.

On-Demand Service Activation

With socket activation support, services start only when needed, improving performance and reducing memory usage.

Future-Proof Architecture

Being micro-service friendly, helps positioning Carbonio CE for modern infrastructure deployments and easier scaling.

Community and Ecosystem

With robust community support, up-to-date documentation, and active development, systemd ensures Carbonio CE remains aligned with modern Linux standards.