How to Install Systemd on CentOS Stream

Modern Linux Distributions already adopted systemd as their service manager. This includes Ubuntu, RHEL, and Fedora. To have new features immediately you can manually install systemd by compiling from the source.

In this tutorial, we learn how to install systemd on the CentOS Stream 9 system

1. Check the Current systemd Version

First of all, confirm the current version of systemd:

systemctl --version

Currently, we have systemd version 250.

2. Get New Systemd File

Download the latest systemd source tar.gz file from Github.

wget https://github.com/systemd/systemd/archive/refs/tags/v251.tar.gz

This downloads systemd source file to the current directory. You may use ls command to verify it.

3. Extract the file

Extract tar gz file using -xf option followed by the archive name.

tar -xf v251.tar.gz

Change into the newly created directory:

cd systemd-251

4. Pre-installation preparation

In order to successfully run the configure script, the following packages are required to be installed:

Development Tools - which contains the gcc/g++ compilers and libraries required to compile packages.
libcap-devel
gperf
glib2-devel
pip3 - required to install python 3+ packages.
meson
ninja and jinja2

We will use yum to install all required packages:

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
yum install libcap-devel
yum install gperf
yum install glib2-devel
yum install python3-pip
pip3 install --user meson
pip3 install ninja
pip3 install jinja2

5. Configure

Now let's now configure the package with configure script.

./configure

6. Compile

Once the configure script is completed successfully, we proceed with the compilation with make command.

make

It may take a while for this command to complete depending on the system configuration.

You can check if the last command was executed successfully with the following command:

echo $?
0

Here 0 indicated we compiled systemd successfully.

7. Install systemd

Now we install this new version with make install command:

make install

If everything worked fine, you will be able to see the newly installed version by checking the systemd version:

The above output shows, we have successfully installed systemd version 251. Perform a reboot to make sure everything runs as normal. You should see the systemd system running by checking ps 1.

Conclusion

Here we have installed systemd by downloading the latest source file and compiling it. This is recommended only for advanced users to experience a fresh version.

Let us know how it goes for you in the below comment section.

About The Author

Bobbin Zachariah

Bobbin Zachariah is an experienced Linux engineer who has been supporting infrastructure for many companies. He specializes in Shell scripting, AWS Cloud, JavaScript, and Nodejs. He has qualified Master’s degree in computer science. He holds Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification and RedHat Enable Sysadmin.