Python module for native access to the systemd facilities. Functionality is seperated 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

To build from source

On Fedora 17+ with Python 2:

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

On Fedora 17+ with Python 3:

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

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 thrown is thrown if sd_journald_sendv() results in an error. This might happen if there are no arguments or one of them is invalid.

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")