How do I exit the systemctl status command's output?

Question

How does one go about getting the command line prompt back after using the systemctl status command? The command appears to succeed as it displays the status information of the requested service. However, the terminal appears to lock up after using the command.

Answer 1

If you mean

systemctl status

at the end it shows this:

      ├─systemd-journald.service
         │ └─318 /lib/systemd/systemd-journald
         ├─fwupd.service
         │ └─1703 /usr/lib/fwupd/fwupd
         ├─systemd-networkd.service
         │ └─395 /lib/systemd/systemd-networkd
         └─cups-browsed.service
           └─2918 /usr/sbin/cups-browsed
lines 172-194/194 (END)

... then press a q for quit.

---

As steeldriver noted in comments: use --no-pager if you do not want this behaviour see details.

systemctl status --no-pager

Answer 2

Check what systemctl is running in another terminal:

$ pstree -pa $(pgrep systemctl)
systemctl,2100 status
  └─less,2101

And from man less:

q or Q or :q or :Q or ZZ
  Exits less.

Answer 3

systemctl status | cat does the job as well. You're just redirecting the output of systemctl status to cat which in turn dumps everything on the console without any pagination