Meaning of systemctl status output

[PsySc0rpi0n]

Hello.

I have some questions that seems conffusing in the output of

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systemctl status myApp

In this case is:

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systemctl status tor

I get the following output:

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$ systemctl status tor
● tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/tor.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Sat 2021-03-20 21:25:00 WET; 7min ago
  Process: 3645 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 3645 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

But, apparently, tor is not running, judging by "ps aux | grep tor" output.

So, if it is not running, why systemctl status says " Active: active (exited)...." ?? And also, if it is not running why it shows a PID? This makes no sense to me!
Then it also says "code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)". So, if for some reason tor failed to start, why it says SUCCESS???

[arid]

Semantics

This is mine and looks good to me.

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● tor.service - Anonymizing overlay network for TCP (multi-instance-master)
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/tor.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (exited) since Sat 2021-03-20 18:34:56 EDT; 2h 7min ago
    Process: 596 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 596 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 1ms

The tor daemon starts when you boot up.

Let's see your ps aux | grep tor.

Mine says it's running as it should be.

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$ ps aux | grep tor
root         251  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    18:34   0:00 [usb-storage]
root         277  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        S    18:34   0:00 [usb-storage]
debian-+     715  0.0  0.3  30404 26176 ?        Ss   18:35   0:00 /usr/bin/tor --defaults-torrc /usr/share/tor/tor-service-defaults-torrc -f 
         4512  0.0  0.0   6180   656 pts/0    S+   20:47   0:00 grep tor

None of this has anything to do with if you're actually using tor.

What I meant by "semantics" is that you can have positive (+) (yes) (start) and negative (-) (no) (stop) = success.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Let's see your ps aux | grep tor

No need for the pipe:

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pgrep -a tor

why systemctl status says " Active: active (exited)...." ?? And also, if it is not running why it shows a PID? This makes no sense to me!

Check what the service actually does by examining the "ExecStart" line(s) in the unit file:

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systemctl cat tor.service

In the case of tor I think the daemon is started by the /lib/systemd/system/tor@.service & /lib/systemd/system/tor@default.service instance units.

Check if they are running by examining the unit tree:

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systemctl status

Or use

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systemd-cgtop