---
title: Heartbeat and systemd
description: The DEB and RPM packages include a service unit for Linux systems with systemd. On these systems, you can manage Heartbeat by using the usual systemd...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/beats/heartbeat/running-with-systemd
products:
  - Beats
  - Heartbeat
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Heartbeat and systemd
The DEB and RPM packages include a service unit for Linux systems with systemd. On these systems, you can manage Heartbeat by using the usual systemd commands.
The service unit is configured with `UMask=0027` which means the most permissive mask allowed for files created by Heartbeat is `0640`. All configured file permissions higher than `0640` will be ignored. Please edit the unit file manually in case you need to change that.

## Start and stop Heartbeat

Use `systemctl` to start or stop Heartbeat:
```sh
sudo systemctl start heartbeat-elastic
```

```sh
sudo systemctl stop heartbeat-elastic
```

By default, the Heartbeat service starts automatically when the system boots. To enable or disable auto start use:
```sh
sudo systemctl enable heartbeat-elastic
```

```sh
sudo systemctl disable heartbeat-elastic
```


## Heartbeat status and logs

To get the service status, use `systemctl`:
```sh
systemctl status heartbeat-elastic
```

Logs are stored by default in journald. To view the Logs, use `journalctl`:
```sh
journalctl -u heartbeat-elastic.service
```


## Customize systemd unit for Heartbeat

The systemd service unit file includes environment variables that you can override to change the default options.

| Variable         | Description                       | Default value                                                                                                                 |
|------------------|-----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| BEAT_LOG_OPTS    | Log options                       |                                                                                                                               |
| BEAT_CONFIG_OPTS | Flags for configuration file path | `-c /etc/heartbeat/heartbeat.yml`                                                                                             |
| BEAT_PATH_OPTS   | Other paths                       | `--path.home /usr/share/heartbeat --path.config /etc/heartbeat --path.data /var/lib/heartbeat --path.logs /var/log/heartbeat` |

<note>
  You can use `BEAT_LOG_OPTS` to set debug selectors for logging. However, to configure logging behavior, set the logging options described in [Configure logging](https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3016/reference/beats/heartbeat/configuration-logging).
</note>

To override these variables, create a drop-in unit file in the `/etc/systemd/system/heartbeat-elastic.service.d` directory.
For example a file with the following content placed in `/etc/systemd/system/heartbeat-elastic.service.d/debug.conf` would override `BEAT_LOG_OPTS` to enable debug for Elasticsearch output.
```text
[Service]
Environment="BEAT_LOG_OPTS=-d elasticsearch"
```

To apply your changes, reload the systemd configuration and restart the service:
```sh
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart heartbeat-elastic
```

<note>
  It is recommended that you use a configuration management tool to include drop-in unit files. If you need to add a drop-in manually, use `systemctl edit heartbeat-elastic.service`.
</note>