Admin-Task Notes

Task-oriented recipes. Each section assumes you already have splam installed and running. See the Tutorial if not.

Add or edit admin-task notes from the app

Select a service in the sidebar (or type a new systemd unit name), click Configure, and fill in the Admin-task notes form: Purpose, Checks and Common issues (one per line), Suggested log search terms (comma-separated), and Compliance note. Click Save admin-task notes.

This writes to service_info_overrides.json in the app’s data directory (override the location with SPLAM_SERVICE_INFO_OVERRIDES) and takes effect immediately, with no redeploy needed. An override for an existing unit name (e.g. cron.service) replaces the built-in entry.

The Service dropdown lists every .service unit in systemd’s search path, so a unit installed on the host is already selectable before anyone writes notes for it. Notes saved against a name that isn’t installed are added to the dropdown anyway, which is what keeps a note from disappearing when its package is removed.

Add admin-task notes in code instead

For notes that should ship with the package rather than live in a per-deployment override file, edit src/splam/service_info.py and add an entry to SERVICE_INFO keyed by the exact systemd unit name:

"my-service.service": {
    "purpose": "...",
    "checks": ["...", "..."],
    "common_issues": ["...", "..."],
    "log_patterns": ["error", "..."],
    "compliance_note": "...",
},

If the same guidance applies to multiple unit names (e.g. a service that’s named differently across distros), define the dict once and point several keys at it. See _SSH_INFO (ssh.service / sshd.service) or _TIME_SYNC_INFO for the pattern. Any service without an entry falls back to GENERIC_INFO.