Running the Atuin server under systemd

Note

These instructions assume the atuin-server binary is on your PATH. Since v18.12.0, the server is distributed as a separate binary — install it from the releases page (see Server setup for the installer).

First, create the service unit file atuin-server.service at /etc/systemd/system/atuin-server.service with contents like this:

[Unit]
Description=Start the Atuin server syncing service
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

[Service]
ExecStart=atuin-server start
Restart=on-failure
User=atuin
Group=atuin

Environment=ATUIN_CONFIG_DIR=/etc/atuin
ReadWritePaths=/etc/atuin

# Hardening options
CapabilityBoundingSet=
AmbientCapabilities=
NoNewPrivileges=true
ProtectHome=true
ProtectSystem=strict
ProtectKernelTunables=true
ProtectKernelModules=true
ProtectControlGroups=true
PrivateTmp=true
PrivateDevices=true
LockPersonality=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

This is the official Atuin service unit file which includes a lot of hardening options to increase security.

Next, create atuin-server.conf at /etc/sysusers.d/atuin-server.conf with contents like this:

u atuin - "Atuin synchronized shell history"

This file will make sure a system user is created in the proper manner.

Afterward, run

systemctl restart systemd-sysusers

to make sure the file is read. A new atuin user should then be available.

Now, you can attempt to run the Atuin server:

systemctl enable --now atuin-server

systemctl status atuin-server

If it started fine, it should have created the default config inside /etc/atuin/.