Python module for native access to the systemd facilities. Functionality is separated into a number of modules:

• systemd.journal supports sending of structured messages to the journal and reading journal files,
• systemd.daemon wraps parts of libsystemd useful for writing daemons and socket activation,
• systemd.id128 provides functions for querying machine and boot identifiers and a lists of message identifiers provided by systemd,
• systemd.login wraps parts of libsystemd used to query logged in users and available seats and machines.

This module should be packaged for almost all Linux distributions. Use

On Fedora/RHEL/CentOS

dnf install python-systemd python3-systemd

On Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

apt-get install python-systemd python3-systemd

On openSUSE and SLE

zypper in python-systemd

To build from source

On CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora with Python 2:

dnf install git python-pip gcc python-devel systemd-devel
pip install git+https://github.com/systemd/python-systemd.git#egg=systemd

On Fedora with Python 3:

dnf install git python3-pip gcc python3-devel systemd-devel
pip3 install git+https://github.com/systemd/python-systemd.git#egg=systemd

On Debian or Ubuntu with Python 2:

apt-get install libsystemd-{journal,daemon,login,id128}-dev gcc python-dev pkg-config

On Debian or Ubuntu with Python 3:

apt-get install libsystemd-{journal,daemon,login,id128}-dev gcc python3-dev pkg-config

The project is also available on pypi as systemd-python.

Quick example:

from systemd import journal
journal.send('Hello world')
journal.send('Hello, again, world', FIELD2='Greetings!', FIELD3='Guten tag')
journal.send('Binary message', BINARY=b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef')

There is one required argument -- the message, and additional fields can be specified as keyword arguments. Following the journald API, all names are uppercase.

The journald sendv call can also be accessed directly:

from systemd import journal
journal.sendv('MESSAGE=Hello world')
journal.sendv('MESSAGE=Hello, again, world', 'FIELD2=Greetings!',
               'FIELD3=Guten tag')
journal.sendv('MESSAGE=Binary message', b'BINARY=\xde\xad\xbe\xef')

The two examples should give the same results in the log.

Notes:

• Unlike the native C version of journald's sd_journal_send(), printf-style substitution is not supported. Perform any substitution using Python's % operator or .format() capabilities first.
• A ValueError is raised if sd_journald_sendv() results in an error. This might happen if there are no arguments or one of them is invalid.

A handler class for the Python logging framework is also provided:

import logging
from systemd import journal
logger = logging.getLogger('custom_logger_name')
logger.addHandler(journal.JournalHandler())
logger.warning("Some message: %s", 'detail')

Online documentation can be found at freedesktop.org

To build it locally run:

make sphinx-html

Or use any other builder, see man sphinx-build for a list. The compiled docs will be e.g. in docs/html.

Quick way to view output with all fields as it comes in:

sudo journalctl -f --output=json

python setup.py build_ext -i
python
>>> from systemd import journal
>>> journal.send("Test")