Servers
Services tab
Everything that is supposed to be running, and the buttons to start, stop and restart it.
A service is a program the server is meant to keep running: your web server
(nginx), your database (mysql, postgresql), your app, the SSH service
itself. Linux calls them units; systemd manages them.
This tab lists every one of them.
Reading the list
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unit | The service's name. nginx.service is usually just called nginx |
| State | running (good), exited (finished, sometimes fine), failed (bad), dead (stopped) |
| On boot | Whether it starts by itself after the server restarts |
"On boot: disabled" on something important is a trap. It works now, and the next time the server restarts it silently does not come back.
The buttons
| Button | What it does | When |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Runs a stopped service | It shows stopped or failed |
| Stop | Stops a running service | Maintenance. Your site goes down if it is the web server |
| Restart | Stop then start | The usual fix. Brief downtime, a few seconds |
| Reload | Re-read the config without stopping | Config change, no downtime. Not every service supports it |
| Enable | Start automatically at boot | Anything that must survive a restart |
| Disable | Do not start at boot | Something you do not want running |
Restart vs reload: reload is gentler and keeps connections alive, but only works for services that support it (nginx does). If a reload does not take effect, restart.
Finding out why something stopped
Select the service and you get two extra views:
- Journal — that service's own log. The reason it failed is nearly always in the last twenty lines.
systemctl show— every setting systemd has for it. Useful when you want to know which file it was started from or which user it runs as.
If the log is beyond you, open a chat and paste the error, or press Ask AI bot on the server card — the assistant reads the journal itself and explains it. See The AI assistant.
The usual pattern
Your site is down:
- Services — is the web server running? If it says failed, read its journal.
- Restart it. Very often that is the end of the story.
- If it stops again within minutes, the cause is elsewhere: out of memory
(check Monitor), out of disk, or a bad config
change (check Nginx →
nginx -t).
There is a guided task for exactly this: A service keeps stopping. See Guided tasks.
Permissions
Starting, stopping and restarting requires the Operator role or above. Viewers see the list but no buttons. Every action is written to the Activity log.