Some handy tips for identifying the boot process of systemd based init devices. Specifically how to use systemd-analyze to identify slowest stating services and all of the dependencies of the system and user login processes.

systemd-analyze

Systemd-analyze command is used to determine system boot-up performance statistics and other state and tracing information from the system and service manager, and to verify the correctness of unit files.

systemd-analyze switches I find useful

  • systemd-analyze time
    systemd-analyze time measures the time from start to when all system services have been spawned, though not necessarily when they have finished initialization. 
     $ systemd-analyze time
 Startup finished in 1min 39.916s (kernel) + 45.380s (userspace) = 2min 25.297s 
 graphical.target reached after 44.945s in userspace
 $
  • systemd-analyze blame
    systemd-analyze blame prints a list of all running units, ordered by the time they took to initialize. This information may be used to optimize boot-up times. 
     $ systemd-analyze blame
 21.359s mariadb.service                                                                          
 16.840s systemd-networkd-wait-online.service                                                     
 10.937s winbindd.service                                                                         
 10.629s accounts-daemon.service                                                                  
 10.232s systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service                                                           
 10.161s transmission-daemon.service                                                              
  8.596s polkit.service                                                                           
  8.435s systemd-journal-flush.service                                                            
  6.739s slapd.service                                                                            
  5.621s squid-cjg.service                                                                        
  4.895s upower.service                                                                           
  4.396s dev-dm\x2d1.device                                                                       
  4.088s iptables-restore.service                                                                 
  4.078s freshclamd.service                                                                       
  3.786s systemd-logind.service             
  ...
  • systemd-analyze critical-chain
    systemd-analyze critical-chain prints a tree of the time critical chain of units for the default target.
 $ systemd-analyze critical-chain
 The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
 The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.
 
 graphical.target @44.945s
 └─multi-user.target @44.944s
   └─mariadb.service @23.584s +21.359s
     └─network.target @23.435s
       └─systemd-resolved.service @22.985s +448ms
         └─systemd-networkd.service @22.143s +839ms
           └─network-pre.target @22.140s
  • systemd-analyze plot > /tmp/systemd-boot.svc
    systemd-analyze plot creates an SVG graphic detailing which system services were started and at what time, showing total time spent initializing. 
     $ systemd-analyze plot > /tmp/systemd-boot.svg
 $ display /tmp/systemd-boot.svg

    Plot Output

  • systemd-analyze dot
    system-analyze dot --order command generates textual dependency graph description in dot format for further processing with the GraphViz tool. 
     $ systemd-analyze dot | dot -T svg > /tmp/systemd-boot-gv-system.svg
 $ systemd-analyze dot | dot -T svg > /tmp/systemd-boot-gv-system.svg
 $ systemd-analyze dot | dot -T svg > /tmp/systemd-boot-gv-system.svg
Color legend: black     = Requires
              dark blue = Requisite
              dark grey = Wants
              red       = Conflicts
              green     = After

    Boot GraphViz

As always it remains a generally good idea to read the fine manual form more details and in depth information.