Managing systemd Targets in CentOS

First we need to see what the current default target is. We can do that by running:

systemctl get-default

Since graphical.target isn't what we need, let's set it to what it should be and then make sure we're in that target.

systemctl set-default multi-user.target

systemctl isolate multi-user.target

Since this is a new server in your environment, you need to make sure custom.target is set up.

Navigate to /etc/systemd/system and create a file that looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=Custom Target
Documentation=man:systemd.special(7)
Requires=basic.target
Wants=httpd.service
Conflicts=rescue.service rescue.target
After=basic.target rescue.service rescue.target
AllowIsolate=yes

Once that is done, you should be able to run systemctl isolate custom.target. Check to see if httpd is running after the isolate — if it's not, you might need to install it and run the isolate again to verify your configuration is correct.