the most common ways to inspect services and roles on Ubuntu.

1. Services (systemd)

Modern Ubuntu uses systemd to manage services.

List all services and their status

bash

systemctl list-units --type=service --all

Show only active (running) services

bash

systemctl list-units --type=service

Check a specific service

bash

systemctl status <service-name>

Example: systemctl status ssh

List services that start on boot

bash

systemctl list-unit-files --type=service

Legacy service command (still works)

bash

service --status-all

• + means running
• - means not running
• ? means status unknown

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2. User Roles, Groups, and Permissions

See what groups your current user belongs to

bash

groups

See groups for a specific user

bash

groups username

List all users on the system

bash

cat /etc/passwd

Or more readable:

bash

getent passwd

List all groups on the system

bash

cat /etc/group

Or:

bash

getent group

Check sudo / admin privileges for your user

bash

sudo -l

This shows what commands you are allowed to run with sudo.

Check if a user has sudo access

bash

sudo -l -U username

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3. Quick Summary Table

What you want	Command
All services	systemctl list-units --type=service --all
Running services	systemctl list-units --type=service
My groups / roles	groups
All system users	getent passwd
All system groups	getent group
My sudo permissions	sudo -l