systemd-mcp

A read-only MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for debugging systemd services over SSH.

Exposes systemctl and journalctl as MCP tools — compatible with Cursor, Claude Desktop, and any MCP client.

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | list_hosts | List SSH hosts from config | | list_services | List all systemd services | | service_status | Get status of a specific service | | service_properties | Get detailed properties (memory, CPU, restarts) | | journal_logs | Read logs with filtering (unit, time range, regex, priority) | | list_journal_units | List units with journal entries | | list_timers | List systemd timers |

All tools are read-only — no write operations are exposed.

Setup

1. Build

make build

2. Create SSH Config

Create ~/.ssh_config_mcp with your hosts (standard SSH config format):

Host myserver
    Hostname 192.168.1.10
    User deploy
    Port 22
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Host production
    Hostname prod.example.com
    User admin
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/prod_key

3. Configure MCP Client

Cursor — add to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "systemd": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/systemd-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop — add to your Claude Desktop config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "systemd": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/systemd-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Security

Host allowlist: Only hosts defined in ~/.ssh_config_mcp are connectable
Input validation: Service names, timestamps, and patterns are validated against safe regexes
Shell escaping: All user inputs are shell-escaped before command construction
Read-only: Only systemctl status/show/list-* and journalctl commands are executed
Output limits: Command output is capped at 1MB

SSH Authentication

Supports:

ssh-agent (via SSH_AUTH_SOCK)
Identity files (from IdentityFile in config)

MCP Servers