Hands-on Lab·Red Hat Certified System Administrator
systemd Service State and Enablement
One objective, and the single most expensive misunderstanding available: `start` and `enable` are unrelated. A service can be running and disabled, stopped and enabled, or masked so it cannot start at all. All four states are produced here, because the grader reboots the machine before marking.
Operating Running Systems Guide 30 of 67 Beginner
- OSRHEL 10.0 (Coughlan)
- Kernel6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0
- dnf4.20.0
- Flatpak1.16.0
- TimeAbout 14 min
- Reviewed23 August 2026
Written against the versions above. `systemctl enable --now` does both in one command and is the form to default to. `disable --now` is its counterpart. Neither existed in early systemd, which is why older material tells you to run two commands.
| Server Name | IP Address | OS | Roles | CPU | RAM | HDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RHCSA-A01 | 192.168.0.31 | RHEL 10.0 (Coughlan) | Practice node (graded) - spare /dev/sda | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB + 15 GB |
Before you start
- A sudo-capable account and a working repository.
- The session installs
httpdpurely as something safe to start and stop, then removes it.
-
The state of a unit
-
Started is not enabled
-
The one command that does both
-
restart, reload, and the difference
-
Masking
-
Finding units and failures