Service management

This page runs honk as a systemd or OpenWrt procd service: it creates the service once, then lists the commands that start, stop, restart and reload honk and read its log. It has no OpenRC steps. Finish Minimal configuration first.

No doona package installs a honk service, and honk’s release archives carry none, so step 1 creates it.

OpenRC

doona and honk ship no OpenRC script. To reach First sign-in, start honk in the foreground with the command from step 6 of Minimal configuration:

sudo /usr/local/bin/honk-core --config /etc/honk/config.dae

/usr/local/bin/honk-core --config /etc/honk/config.dae

honk runs until you press Ctrl+C or close the terminal, and prints its log there. It does not start at boot. The rest of this page applies to systemd and procd only.

1. Create the service

Do this once. The systemd unit is the one honk’s quick start gives; the procd script starts the same command with OpenWrt’s paths.

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/honk-core.service > /dev/null <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=honk transparent proxy engine
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=notify
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/honk
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/honk-core --config /etc/honk/config.dae --disable-timestamp
ExecReload=/usr/local/bin/honk-core reload
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
TimeoutStopSec=30s
LimitNOFILE=1048576
LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
UMask=0077

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

cat > /etc/systemd/system/honk-core.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=honk transparent proxy engine
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=notify
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/honk
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/honk-core --config /etc/honk/config.dae --disable-timestamp
ExecReload=/usr/local/bin/honk-core reload
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
TimeoutStopSec=30s
LimitNOFILE=1048576
LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
UMask=0077

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
systemctl daemon-reload

cat > /etc/init.d/honk-core <<'EOF'
#!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common

START=99
STOP=10
USE_PROCD=1

start_service() {
	procd_open_instance
	procd_set_param command /usr/bin/honk-core --config /etc/honk/config.dae --data-dir /etc/honk/data --disable-timestamp
	procd_set_param limits nofile="1048576 1048576"
	procd_set_param env MIMALLOC_PURGE_DELAY=0
	procd_set_param respawn
	procd_set_param stdout 1
	procd_set_param stderr 1
	procd_close_instance
}

reload_service() {
	/usr/bin/honk-core reload
}
EOF
chmod 0755 /etc/init.d/honk-core

Do not add NoNewPrivileges=yes, capability limits or a read-only /proc/sys to the unit: honk needs BPF, network administration, namespace, mount and sysctl privileges at startup.

On OpenWrt, keep MIMALLOC_PURGE_DELAY=0 in the procd script above so mimalloc returns freed memory to the system at once. This advice also applies to builds from debug.2026.9.28.native-api.4 onward, which stream geodata updates to disk: on a 256 MB router, such a build kept about 120 MB after a geodata update without it, and settled at 36–46 MB over three updates with it.

2. Start honk and start it at boot

sudo systemctl enable --now honk-core

systemctl enable --now honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core enable
/etc/init.d/honk-core start

systemd prints Created symlink '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/honk-core.service' → '/etc/systemd/system/honk-core.service'. The command returns once honk reports that it is ready.

3. Check that honk is running

sudo systemctl status honk-core

systemctl status honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core status

A running honk looks like this. systemd on Debian 13:

● honk-core.service - honk transparent proxy engine
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/honk-core.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since …

procd prints running; after a stop it prints inactive.

The log also shows honk-core is running. Press Ctrl+C to stop., and curl http://192.168.1.1:9527/api, with your address, answers as in step 5 of Minimal configuration.

Read the log

sudo journalctl -u honk-core -e

journalctl -u honk-core -e

logread -e honk-core

To follow new lines as they arrive:

sudo journalctl -u honk-core -f

journalctl -u honk-core -f

logread -f -e honk-core

Press Ctrl+C to stop following. The systemd journal keeps lines from earlier starts too; read from the last starting line.

Reload the configuration

After editing a .dae file, reload honk. A reload re-reads the configuration without stopping honk.

sudo systemctl reload honk-core

systemctl reload honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core reload

The log shows SIGHUP reload request 1 started, then applied, or rejected with reload rejected: changed fields require process restart fields=[…]. The listed fields, which include everything under native_api, log_level and the interfaces, need a restart. doona’s Configuration page reloads by itself after saving.

Restart

A restart stops honk and starts it again.

sudo systemctl restart honk-core

systemctl restart honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core restart

Stop

sudo systemctl stop honk-core

systemctl stop honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core stop

honk stays stopped until the next start or boot.

Stop starting at boot

sudo systemctl disable honk-core

systemctl disable honk-core

/etc/init.d/honk-core disable

Next: First sign-in.

If it doesn’t work

For more messages, see Troubleshooting.