How to Display, Change and Switch target (runlevel) in CentOS/RHEL 7 using systemd

This post explains how to display, change, and switch target(runlevel) in systemd on a CentOS/RHEL 7 machine.

Display Target (runlevel)

1. To display the default target unit, run the below command:

# systemctl get-default
graphical.target

2. To list all currently loaded target units, run the below command:

# systemctl list-units --type target

3. By default, the systemctl list-units command displays only active units. To list all loaded units regardless of their state, run the above command with the –all or -a command line option:

# systemctl list-units --type target --all

Change default target

To change the default target, run the below command:

# systemctl set-default [new_target]

For example:

# systemctl set-default multi-user.target

Replace [new_target] with multi-user.target or graphical.target.

• multi-user.target » runlevel 3
• graphical.target » runlevel 5

Switch Target

While the system is running, you can switch the target/(runlevel), which means only services as well as units defined under that target will run on the system.

1. To switch to runlevel 3, run the below command:

# systemctl isolate multi-user.target

2. To switch the system to runlevel 5, run the below command:

# systemctl isolate graphical.target

3. Refer man systemctl for more details:

# man systemctl