Install Boundary under systemd

This section covers how to install Boundary under the systemd init system on modern Linux distributions. In this section, we'll cover an example of breaking out the controller and worker servers onto separate instances, though you can opt to run both on a single server.

Filesystem configuration

TYPE below can be either worker or controller if you want to run them independently, e.g. for high availability. If you want to run combined nodes, modify as desired.

/etc/boundary-${TYPE}.hcl: Configuration file for the boundary service.
/usr/local/bin/boundary: The Boundary binary, which can be built from the source or downloaded from our release page.
/etc/systemd/system/boundary-${TYPE}.service: Systemd unit file for the Boundary service.

User and group configuration

We recommend running Boundary as a non-root user and using this user to manage the Boundary process running under systemd. The example init files here do exactly that. Our example install script below creates a user and group on Ubuntu or Debian-like systems.

systemd unit file

[Unit]
Description=${NAME} ${TYPE}
 
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/${NAME} server -config /etc/${NAME}-${TYPE}.hcl
User=boundary
Group=boundary
LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
Capabilities=CAP_IPC_LOCK+ep
CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_SYSLOG CAP_IPC_LOCK
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

systemd all-in-one installation script

Here's a simple install script that creates the boundary group and user, installs the systemd unit file, and enables it at startup:

#!/bin/bash
# Installs the boundary as a service for systemd on linux
# Usage: ./install.sh <worker|controller>
 
TYPE=$1
NAME=boundary
 
sudo cat << EOF > /etc/systemd/system/${NAME}-${TYPE}.service
[Unit]
Description=${NAME} ${TYPE}
 
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/${NAME} server -config /etc/${NAME}-${TYPE}.hcl
User=boundary
Group=boundary
LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
Capabilities=CAP_IPC_LOCK+ep
CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_SYSLOG CAP_IPC_LOCK
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
 
# Add the boundary system user and group to ensure we have a no-login
# user capable of owning and running Boundary
sudo adduser --system --group boundary || true
sudo chown boundary:boundary /etc/${NAME}-${TYPE}.hcl
sudo chown boundary:boundary /usr/local/bin/boundary
 
# Make sure to initialize the DB before starting the service. This will result in
# a database already initialized warning if another controller or worker has done this
# already, making it a lazy, best effort initialization
if [ "${TYPE}" = "controller" ]; then
  sudo /usr/local/bin/boundary database init -config /etc/${NAME}-${TYPE}.hcl || true
fi
 
sudo chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/${NAME}-${TYPE}.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable ${NAME}-${TYPE}
sudo systemctl start ${NAME}-${TYPE}