ipactl

The ipactl command is used in FreeIPA to manage the IPA services on the server. It provides a convenient way to start, stop, restart, and check the status of all IPA services at once.

Common `ipactl` Commands

Check IPA Services Status:
```
ipactl status
```
This command shows the status of all the IPA-related services, such as Directory Server (LDAP), Kerberos, DNS, and HTTP services, among others.
Example:
```
# ipactl status
```
Output (example):
```
Directory Service: RUNNING
KDC Service: RUNNING
KPASSWD Service: RUNNING
HTTP Service: RUNNING
DNS Service: RUNNING
```
Start IPA Services:
```
ipactl start
```
Starts all the IPA services on the system. This is useful after system reboots or maintenance.
Example:
```
# ipactl start
```
Stop IPA Services:
```
ipactl stop
```
Stops all the IPA services on the system. This can be useful for troubleshooting, planned maintenance, or shutting down the server gracefully.
Example:
```
# ipactl stop
```
Restart IPA Services:
```
ipactl restart
```
Restarts all IPA services. Useful after configuration changes or to recover from certain types of issues.
Example:
```
# ipactl restart
```
Enable IPA Services on Boot: By default, ipactl ensures that all IPA-related services start automatically during system boot. However, if required, you can use the system’s service manager (like systemctl in RHEL/CentOS 7 and above) to ensure the FreeIPA services start on boot.
Example:
```
systemctl enable ipa.service
```

Services Managed by `ipactl`

ipactl manages multiple services critical to FreeIPA, including:

Directory Server (LDAP) – Manages the LDAP directory services.
KDC (Kerberos Key Distribution Center) – Manages Kerberos authentication.
KPASSWD – Manages password changes via Kerberos.
HTTPD (Apache) – Manages the web interface and HTTP services for IPA.
DNS (if configured) – Manages DNS services, including DNSSEC.
Certmonger – Manages certificate renewal.

Use Case: Restarting IPA Services After a Change

If you’ve made configuration changes to the FreeIPA setup or encountered issues with services not responding, you can restart all IPA-related services with:

ipactl restart

This ensures that the changes are applied across all relevant services.

Conclusion

The ipactl command is a simple and powerful utility to manage all services related to FreeIPA. It provides system administrators with the ability to control, monitor, and maintain the health of IPA services from a single interface, making it an essential tool for managing FreeIPA servers.

Previousipa-server-install Nextipctl

Last updated 8 days ago

Common ipactl Commands

Services Managed by ipactl

Use Case: Restarting IPA Services After a Change

Conclusion

Common `ipactl` Commands

Services Managed by `ipactl`