# Checking SSM Agent status and starting the agent
<a name="ssm-agent-status-and-restart"></a>

This topic lists the commands to check whether Amazon Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) is running on each supported operating system. It also provides the commands to start the agent if it isn't running.

**Note**  
These commands require that SSM Agent is already installed on the managed node. You must have administrator privileges on Windows, or root/sudo access on Linux and macOS, to run these commands.


| Operating system | Command to check SSM Agent status | Command to start SSM Agent | 
| --- | --- | --- | 
| Amazon Linux 2and Amazon Linux 2023 |  `sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent`  |  `sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent` <br /> `sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| Debian Server11 and 12 |  `sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent`  |  `sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent` <br /> `sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| macOS | Check the agent log file at /var/log/amazon/ssm/amazon-ssm-agent.log |  `sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.amazon.aws.ssm.plist` <br /> `sudo launchctl start com.amazon.aws.ssm`  | 
| Oracle Linux |  `sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent`  |  `sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent` <br /> `sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.x, 8.x, 9.x, and 10.x |  `sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent`  |  `sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent` <br /> `sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) |  `sudo systemctl status amazon-ssm-agent`  |  `sudo systemctl enable amazon-ssm-agent` <br /> `sudo systemctl start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| Ubuntu Server 18.04, 20.04, 22.04 LTS, 23.10, 24.04 LTS, 24.0, and 25.04 |  `sudo systemctl status snap.amazon-ssm-agent.amazon-ssm-agent.service`  |  `sudo snap start amazon-ssm-agent`  | 
| Windows Server |  *Run in PowerShell:* <br /> `Get-Service AmazonSSMAgent`  |  *Run in PowerShell Administrator mode:* <br /> `Start-Service AmazonSSMAgent`  | 

 **More info**   
+  [Working with SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Linux](ssm-agent-linux.md) 
+  [Working with SSM Agent on EC2 instances for Windows Server](ssm-agent-windows.md) 
+  [Checking the SSM Agent version number](ssm-agent-get-version.md)