NAME¶

systemd.unit - Unit configuration

SYNOPSIS¶

service.service, socket.socket, device.device, mount.mount, automount.automount, swap.swap, target.target, path.path, timer.timer, snapshot.snapshot, slice.slice, scope.scope

/etc/systemd/system/*
/run/systemd/system/*
/usr/lib/systemd/system/*
...


    

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/systemd/user/*
$HOME/.config/systemd/user/*
/etc/systemd/user/*
$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/systemd/user/*
/run/systemd/user/*
$XDG_DATA_HOME/systemd/user/*
$HOME/.local/share/systemd/user/*
/usr/lib/systemd/user/*
...


    

DESCRIPTION¶

A unit configuration file encodes information about a service, a socket, a device, a mount point, an automount point, a swap file or partition, a start-up target, a watched file system path, a timer controlled and supervised by systemd(1), a temporary system state snapshot, a resource management slice or a group of externally created processes. The syntax is inspired by XDG Desktop Entry Specification[1].desktop files, which are in turn inspired by Microsoft Windows .ini files.

This man page lists the common configuration options of all the unit types. These options need to be configured in the [Unit] or [Install] sections of the unit files.

In addition to the generic [Unit] and [Install] sections described here, each unit may have a type-specific section, e.g. [Service] for a service unit. See the respective man pages for more information: systemd.service(5), systemd.socket(5), systemd.device(5), systemd.mount(5), systemd.automount(5), systemd.swap(5), systemd.target(5), systemd.path(5), systemd.timer(5), systemd.snapshot(5). systemd.slice(5). systemd.scope(5).

Various settings are allowed to be specified more than once, in which case the interpretation depends on the setting. Often, multiple settings form a list, and setting to an empty value "resets", which means that previous assignments are ignored. When this is allowed, it is mentioned in the description of the setting. Note that using multiple assignments to the same value makes the unit file incompatible with parsers for the XDG .desktop file format.

Unit files are loaded from a set of paths determined during compilation, described in the next section.

Unit files may contain additional options on top of those listed here. If systemd encounters an unknown option, it will write a warning log message but continue loading the unit. If an option or section name is prefixed with X-, it is ignored completely by systemd. Options within an ignored section do not need the prefix. Applications may use this to include additional information in the unit files.

Boolean arguments used in unit files can be written in various formats. For positive settings the strings 1, yes, true and on are equivalent. For negative settings, the strings 0, no, false and off are equivalent.

Time span values encoded in unit files can be written in various formats. A stand-alone number specifies a time in seconds. If suffixed with a time unit, the unit is honored. A concatenation of multiple values with units is supported, in which case the values are added up. Example: "50" refers to 50 seconds; "2min 200ms" refers to 2 minutes plus 200 milliseconds, i.e. 120200ms. The following time units are understood: s, min, h, d, w, ms, us. For details see systemd.time(7).

Empty lines and lines starting with # or ; are ignored. This may be used for commenting. Lines ending in a backslash are concatenated with the following line while reading and the backslash is replaced by a space character. This may be used to wrap long lines.

Along with a unit file foo.service, the directory foo.service.wants/ may exist. All unit files symlinked from such a directory are implicitly added as dependencies of type Wants= to the unit. This is useful to hook units into the start-up of other units, without having to modify their unit files. For details about the semantics of Wants=, see below. The preferred way to create symlinks in the .wants/ directory of a unit file is with the enable command of the systemctl(1) tool which reads information from the [Install] section of unit files (see below). A similar functionality exists for Requires= type dependencies as well, the directory suffix is .requires/ in this case.

Along with a unit file foo.service, a directory foo.service.d/ may exist. All files with the suffix ".conf" from this directory will be parsed after the file itself is parsed. This is useful to alter or add configuration settings to a unit, without having to modify their unit files. Make sure that the file that is included has the appropriate section headers before any directive. Note that for instanced units this logic will first look for the instance ".d/" subdirectory and read its ".conf" files, followed by the template ".d/" subdirectory and reads its ".conf" files.

Note that while systemd offers a flexible dependency system between units it is recommended to use this functionality only sparingly and instead rely on techniques such as bus-based or socket-based activation which make dependencies implicit, resulting in a both simpler and more flexible system.

Some unit names reflect paths existing in the file system namespace. Example: a device unit dev-sda.device refers to a device with the device node /dev/sda in the file system namespace. If this applies, a special way to escape the path name is used, so that the result is usable as part of a filename. Basically, given a path, "/" is replaced by "-" and all other characters which are not ASCII alphanumerics are replaced by C-style "\x2d" escapes (except that "_" is never replaced and "." is only replaced when it would be the first character in the escaped path). The root directory "/" is encoded as single dash, while otherwise the initial and ending "/" are removed from all paths during transformation. This escaping is reversible. Properly escaped paths can be generated using the systemd-escape(1) command.

Optionally, units may be instantiated from a template file at runtime. This allows creation of multiple units from a single configuration file. If systemd looks for a unit configuration file, it will first search for the literal unit name in the file system. If that yields no success and the unit name contains an "@" character, systemd will look for a unit template that shares the same name but with the instance string (i.e. the part between the "@" character and the suffix) removed. Example: if a service getty@tty3.service is requested and no file by that name is found, systemd will look for getty@.service and instantiate a service from that configuration file if it is found.

To refer to the instance string from within the configuration file you may use the special "%i" specifier in many of the configuration options. See below for details.

If a unit file is empty (i.e. has the file size 0) or is symlinked to /dev/null, its configuration will not be loaded and it appears with a load state of "masked", and cannot be activated. Use this as an effective way to fully disable a unit, making it impossible to start it even manually.

The unit file format is covered by the Interface Stability Promise[2].

UNIT LOAD PATH¶

Unit files are loaded from a set of paths determined during compilation, described in the two tables below. Unit files found in directories listed earlier override files with the same name in directories lower in the list.

Table 1.  Load path when running in system mode (--system).

Additional units might be loaded into systemd ("linked") from directories not on the unit load path. See the
link command for systemctl(1). Also, some units are dynamically created via a systemd.generator(7).

UNIT GARBAGE COLLECTION¶

The system and service manager loads a unit's configuration automatically when a unit is referenced for the first time. It will automatically unload the unit configuration and state again when the unit is not needed anymore ("garbage collection"). A unit may be referenced through a number of different mechanisms:

The garbage collection logic may be altered with the CollectMode= option, which allows configuration whether automatic unloading of units that are in failed state is permissible, see below.

Note that when a unit's configuration and state is unloaded, all execution results, such as exit codes, exit signals, resource consumption and other statistics are lost, except for what is stored in the log subsystem.

Use systemctl daemon-reload or an equivalent command to reload unit configuration while the unit is already loaded. In this case all configuration settings are flushed out and replaced with the new configuration (which however might not be in effect immediately), however all runtime state is saved/restored.

[UNIT] SECTION OPTIONS¶

Unit file may include a [Unit] section, which carries generic information about the unit that is not dependent on the type of unit:

Description=

Documentation=

Requires=

RequiresOverridable=

Requisite=, RequisiteOverridable=

Wants=

BindsTo=

PartOf=

Conflicts=

Before=, After=

OnFailure=

PropagatesReloadTo=, ReloadPropagatedFrom=

JoinsNamespaceOf=

RequiresMountsFor=

OnFailureJobMode=

IgnoreOnIsolate=

IgnoreOnSnapshot=

StopWhenUnneeded=

RefuseManualStart=, RefuseManualStop=

AllowIsolate=

DefaultDependencies=

CollectMode=

JobTimeoutSec=, JobTimeoutAction=, JobTimeoutRebootArgument=

ConditionArchitecture=, ConditionVirtualization=, ConditionHost=, ConditionKernelCommandLine=, ConditionSecurity=, ConditionCapability=, ConditionACPower=, ConditionNeedsUpdate=, ConditionFirstBoot=, ConditionPathExists=, ConditionPathExistsGlob=, ConditionPathIsDirectory=, ConditionPathIsSymbolicLink=, ConditionPathIsMountPoint=, ConditionPathIsReadWrite=, ConditionDirectoryNotEmpty=, ConditionFileNotEmpty=, ConditionFileIsExecutable=

AssertArchitecture=, AssertVirtualization=, AssertHost=, AssertKernelCommandLine=, AssertSecurity=, AssertCapability=, AssertACPower=, AssertNeedsUpdate=, AssertFirstBoot=, AssertPathExists=, AssertPathExistsGlob=, AssertPathIsDirectory=, AssertPathIsSymbolicLink=, AssertPathIsMountPoint=, AssertPathIsReadWrite=, AssertDirectoryNotEmpty=, AssertFileNotEmpty=, AssertFileIsExecutable=

SourcePath=

[INSTALL] SECTION OPTIONS¶

Unit file may include an "[Install]" section, which carries installation information for the unit. This section is not interpreted by systemd(1) during runtime. It is used exclusively by the enable and disable commands of the systemctl(1) tool during installation of a unit:

Alias=

WantedBy=, RequiredBy=

Also=

DefaultInstance=

The following specifiers are interpreted in the Install section: %n, %N, %p, %i, %U, %u, %m, %H, %b, %v. For their meaning see the next section.

SPECIFIERS¶

Many settings resolve specifiers which may be used to write generic unit files referring to runtime or unit parameters that are replaced when the unit files are loaded. The following specifiers are understood:

Table 2. Specifiers available in unit files

Please note that specifiers
"%U", "%h", "%s" are mostly useless when systemd is running in system mode. PID 1 cannot query the user account database for information, so the specifiers only work as shortcuts for things which are already specified in a different way in the unit file.

EXAMPLES¶

Example 1. Allowing units to be enabled

The following snippet (highlighted) allows a unit (e.g. foo.service) to be enabled via systemctl enable:

[Unit]
Description=Foo
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-daemon
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After running systemctl enable, a symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/foo.service linking to the actual unit will be created. It tells systemd to pull in the unit when starting multi-user.target. The inverse systemctl disable will remove that symlink again.

Example 2. Overriding vendor settings

There are two methods of overriding vendor settings in unit files: copying the unit file from /usr/lib/systemd/system to /etc/systemd/system and modifying the chosen settings. Alternatively, one can create a directory named unit.d/ within /etc/systemd/system and place a drop-in file name.conf there that only changes the specific settings one is interested in. Note that multiple such drop-in files are read if present.

The advantage of the first method is that one easily overrides the complete unit, the vendor unit is not parsed at all anymore. It has the disadvantage that improvements to the unit file by the vendor are not automatically incorporated on updates.

The advantage of the second method is that one only overrides the settings one specifically wants, where updates to the unit by the vendor automatically apply. This has the disadvantage that some future updates by the vendor might be incompatible with the local changes.

Note that for drop-in files, if one wants to remove entries from a setting that is parsed as a list (and is not a dependency), such as ConditionPathExists= (or e.g. ExecStart= in service units), one needs to first clear the list before re-adding all entries except the one that is to be removed. See below for an example.

Suppose there is a vendor-supplied unit /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service with the following contents:

[Unit]
Description=Some HTTP server
After=remote-fs.target sqldb.service
Requires=sqldb.service
AssertPathExists=/srv/webserver
[Service]
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/some-fancy-httpd-server
Nice=5
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Now one wants to change some settings as an administrator: firstly, in the local setup, /srv/webserver might not exist, because the HTTP server is configured to use /srv/www instead. Secondly, the local configuration makes the HTTP server also depend on a memory cache service, memcached.service, that should be pulled in (Requires=) and also be ordered appropriately (After=). Thirdly, in order to harden the service a bit more, the administrator would like to set the PrivateTmp= setting (see systemd.service(5) for details). And lastly, the administrator would like to reset the niceness of the service to its default value of 0.

The first possibility is to copy the unit file to /etc/systemd/system/httpd.service and change the chosen settings:

[Unit]
Description=Some HTTP server
After=remote-fs.target sqldb.service memcached.service
Requires=sqldb.service memcached.service
AssertPathExists=/srv/www
[Service]
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/some-fancy-httpd-server
Nice=0
PrivateTmp=yes
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Alternatively, the administrator could create a drop-in file /etc/systemd/system/httpd.service.d/local.conf with the following contents:

[Unit]
After=memcached.service
Requires=memcached.service
# Reset all assertions and then re-add the condition we want
AssertPathExists=
AssertPathExists=/srv/www
[Service]
Nice=0
PrivateTmp=yes

Note that dependencies (After=, etc.) cannot be reset to an empty list, so dependencies can only be added in drop-ins. If you want to remove dependencies, you have to override the entire unit.

SEE ALSO¶

systemd(1), systemctl(1), systemd.special(7), systemd.service(5), systemd.socket(5), systemd.device(5), systemd.mount(5), systemd.automount(5), systemd.swap(5), systemd.target(5), systemd.path(5), systemd.timer(5), systemd.snapshot(5), systemd.scope(5), systemd.slice(5), systemd.time(7), systemd-analyze(1), capabilities(7), systemd.directives(7), uname(1)

NOTES¶

1.

XDG Desktop Entry Specification

2.

Interface Stability Promise