Disabled Transparent Huge Pages with created systemd service

In some applications (e.g. Splunk) you need to disable Transparent Huge Pages THP. 

When your systems are running in a managed environment (e.g. the public cloud - like Microsoft Azure) with cloud images (like "0001-com-ubuntu-server-jammy" or "0001-com-ubuntu-confidential-vm-jammy" (both Ubuntu22.04 LTS)), you may not be able to use the GRUB Edit to disable THP, because the cloud image ignores the GRUB edits. A possible solution can be a custom systemd service:

Example Disable Transparent Huge Pages once (not reboot-persistent💢):

user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
[always] madvise never
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ echo never | sudo tee /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
never
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
always madvise [never]
user@devazubu227:~$

Example Disable Transparent Huge Pages with custom systemd service (reboot-persistent ✅):

Commands:

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/disable-thp.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Disable Transparent Huge Pages
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled && echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable disable-thp
sudo systemctl start disable-thp
sudo systemctl status disable-thp
cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag

Example

user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/disable-thp.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Disable Transparent Huge Pages
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled && echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ cat /etc/systemd/system/disable-thp.service
[Unit]
Description=Disable Transparent Huge Pages
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled && echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo systemctl daemon-reexec
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo systemctl enable disable-thp
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/disable-thp.service → /etc/systemd/system/disable-thp.service.
user@devazubu227:~$ sudo systemctl start disable-thp

user@devazubu227:~$ sudo systemctl status disable-thp
○ disable-thp.service - Disable Transparent Huge Pages
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/disable-thp.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Thu 2025-08-07 11:01:42 UTC; 11s ago
Process: 4394 ExecStart=/bin/bash -c echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled && echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defra>
Main PID: 4394 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
CPU: 2ms

Aug 07 11:01:42 devazubu227 systemd[1]: Started Disable Transparent Huge Pages.
Aug 07 11:01:42 devazubu227 systemd[1]: disable-thp.service: Deactivated successfully.
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled
always madvise [never]
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$ cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag
always defer defer+madvise madvise [never]
user@devazubu227:~$
user@devazubu227:~$