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2<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
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4<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later -->
5
6<refentry id="systemd.service">
7  <refentryinfo>
8    <title>systemd.service</title>
9    <productname>systemd</productname>
10  </refentryinfo>
11
12  <refmeta>
13    <refentrytitle>systemd.service</refentrytitle>
14    <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
15  </refmeta>
16
17  <refnamediv>
18    <refname>systemd.service</refname>
19    <refpurpose>Service unit configuration</refpurpose>
20  </refnamediv>
21
22  <refsynopsisdiv>
23    <para><filename><replaceable>service</replaceable>.service</filename></para>
24  </refsynopsisdiv>
25
26  <refsect1>
27    <title>Description</title>
28
29    <para>A unit configuration file whose name ends in
30    <literal>.service</literal> encodes information about a process
31    controlled and supervised by systemd.</para>
32
33    <para>This man page lists the configuration options specific to
34    this unit type. See
35    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
36    for the common options of all unit configuration files. The common
37    configuration items are configured in the generic
38    [Unit] and [Install]
39    sections. The service specific configuration options are
40    configured in the [Service] section.</para>
41
42    <para>Additional options are listed in
43    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
44    which define the execution environment the commands are executed
45    in, and in
46    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
47    which define the way the processes of the service are terminated,
48    and in
49    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
50    which configure resource control settings for the processes of the
51    service.</para>
52
53    <para>If SysV init compat is enabled, systemd automatically creates service units that wrap SysV init
54    scripts (the service name is the same as the name of the script, with a <literal>.service</literal>
55    suffix added); see
56    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-sysv-generator</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
57    </para>
58
59    <para>The <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-run</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
60    command allows creating <filename>.service</filename> and <filename>.scope</filename> units dynamically
61    and transiently from the command line.</para>
62  </refsect1>
63
64  <refsect1>
65    <title>Service Templates</title>
66
67    <para>It is possible for <command>systemd</command> services to take a single argument via the
68    <literal><replaceable>service</replaceable>@<replaceable>argument</replaceable>.service</literal>
69    syntax. Such services are called "instantiated" services, while the unit definition without the
70    <replaceable>argument</replaceable> parameter is called a "template". An example could be a
71    <filename>dhcpcd@.service</filename> service template which takes a network interface as a
72    parameter to form an instantiated service. Within the service file, this parameter or "instance
73    name" can be accessed with %-specifiers. See
74    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
75    for details.</para>
76  </refsect1>
77
78  <refsect1>
79    <title>Automatic Dependencies</title>
80
81    <refsect2>
82      <title>Implicit Dependencies</title>
83
84      <para>The following dependencies are implicitly added:</para>
85
86      <itemizedlist>
87        <listitem><para>Services with <varname>Type=dbus</varname> set automatically
88        acquire dependencies of type <varname>Requires=</varname> and
89        <varname>After=</varname> on
90        <filename>dbus.socket</filename>.</para></listitem>
91
92        <listitem><para>Socket activated services are automatically ordered after
93        their activating <filename>.socket</filename> units via an
94        automatic <varname>After=</varname> dependency.
95        Services also pull in all <filename>.socket</filename> units
96        listed in <varname>Sockets=</varname> via automatic
97        <varname>Wants=</varname> and <varname>After=</varname> dependencies.</para></listitem>
98      </itemizedlist>
99
100      <para>Additional implicit dependencies may be added as result of
101      execution and resource control parameters as documented in
102      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
103      and
104      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
105    </refsect2>
106
107    <refsect2>
108      <title>Default Dependencies</title>
109
110      <para>The following dependencies are added unless <varname>DefaultDependencies=no</varname> is set:</para>
111
112      <itemizedlist>
113        <listitem><para>Service units will have dependencies of type <varname>Requires=</varname> and
114        <varname>After=</varname> on <filename>sysinit.target</filename>, a dependency of type <varname>After=</varname> on
115        <filename>basic.target</filename> as well as dependencies of type <varname>Conflicts=</varname> and
116        <varname>Before=</varname> on <filename>shutdown.target</filename>. These ensure that normal service units pull in
117        basic system initialization, and are terminated cleanly prior to system shutdown. Only services involved with early
118        boot or late system shutdown should disable this option.</para></listitem>
119
120        <listitem><para>Instanced service units (i.e. service units with an <literal>@</literal> in their name) are assigned by
121        default a per-template slice unit (see
122        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.slice</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>), named after the
123        template unit, containing all instances of the specific template. This slice is normally stopped at shutdown,
124        together with all template instances. If that is not desired, set <varname>DefaultDependencies=no</varname> in the
125        template unit, and either define your own per-template slice unit file that also sets
126        <varname>DefaultDependencies=no</varname>, or set <varname>Slice=system.slice</varname> (or another suitable slice)
127        in the template unit. Also see
128        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
129        </para></listitem>
130      </itemizedlist>
131    </refsect2>
132  </refsect1>
133
134  <refsect1>
135    <title>Options</title>
136
137    <para>Service unit files may include [Unit] and [Install] sections, which are described in
138    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
139    </para>
140
141    <para>Service unit files must include a [Service]
142    section, which carries information about the service and the
143    process it supervises. A number of options that may be used in
144    this section are shared with other unit types. These options are
145    documented in
146    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
147    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
148    and
149    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
150    The options specific to the [Service] section
151    of service units are the following:</para>
152
153    <variablelist class='unit-directives'>
154      <varlistentry>
155        <term><varname>Type=</varname></term>
156
157        <listitem>
158          <para>Configures the process start-up type for this service unit. One of <option>simple</option>,
159          <option>exec</option>, <option>forking</option>, <option>oneshot</option>, <option>dbus</option>,
160          <option>notify</option> or <option>idle</option>:</para>
161
162          <itemizedlist>
163            <listitem><para>If set to <option>simple</option> (the default if <varname>ExecStart=</varname> is
164            specified but neither <varname>Type=</varname> nor <varname>BusName=</varname> are), the service manager
165            will consider the unit started immediately after the main service process has been forked off. It is
166            expected that the process configured with <varname>ExecStart=</varname> is the main process of the
167            service. In this mode, if the process offers functionality to other processes on the system, its
168            communication channels should be installed before the service is started up (e.g.  sockets set up by
169            systemd, via socket activation), as the service manager will immediately proceed starting follow-up units,
170            right after creating the main service process, and before executing the service's binary. Note that this
171            means <command>systemctl start</command> command lines for <option>simple</option> services will report
172            success even if the service's binary cannot be invoked successfully (for example because the selected
173            <varname>User=</varname> doesn't exist, or the service binary is missing).</para></listitem>
174
175            <listitem><para>The <option>exec</option> type is similar to <option>simple</option>, but the service
176            manager will consider the unit started immediately after the main service binary has been executed. The service
177            manager will delay starting of follow-up units until that point. (Or in other words:
178            <option>simple</option> proceeds with further jobs right after <function>fork()</function> returns, while
179            <option>exec</option> will not proceed before both <function>fork()</function> and
180            <function>execve()</function> in the service process succeeded.) Note that this means <command>systemctl
181            start</command> command lines for <option>exec</option> services will report failure when the service's
182            binary cannot be invoked successfully (for example because the selected <varname>User=</varname> doesn't
183            exist, or the service binary is missing).</para></listitem>
184
185            <listitem><para>If set to <option>forking</option>, it is expected that the process configured with
186            <varname>ExecStart=</varname> will call <function>fork()</function> as part of its start-up. The parent
187            process is expected to exit when start-up is complete and all communication channels are set up. The child
188            continues to run as the main service process, and the service manager will consider the unit started when
189            the parent process exits. This is the behavior of traditional UNIX services. If this setting is used, it is
190            recommended to also use the <varname>PIDFile=</varname> option, so that systemd can reliably identify the
191            main process of the service. systemd will proceed with starting follow-up units as soon as the parent
192            process exits.</para></listitem>
193
194            <listitem><para>Behavior of <option>oneshot</option> is similar to <option>simple</option>;
195            however, the service manager will consider the unit up after the main process exits. It will then
196            start follow-up units. <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname> is particularly useful for this type
197            of service. <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option> is the implied default if neither
198            <varname>Type=</varname> nor <varname>ExecStart=</varname> are specified. Note that if this
199            option is used without <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname> the service will never enter
200            <literal>active</literal> unit state, but directly transition from <literal>activating</literal>
201            to <literal>deactivating</literal> or <literal>dead</literal> since no process is configured that
202            shall run continuously. In particular this means that after a service of this type ran (and which
203            has <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname> not set) it will not show up as started afterwards, but
204            as dead.</para></listitem>
205
206            <listitem><para>Behavior of <option>dbus</option> is similar to <option>simple</option>; however,
207            it is expected that the service acquires a name on the D-Bus bus, as configured by
208            <varname>BusName=</varname>. systemd will proceed with starting follow-up units after the D-Bus
209            bus name has been acquired. Service units with this option configured implicitly gain
210            dependencies on the <filename>dbus.socket</filename> unit. This type is the default if
211            <varname>BusName=</varname> is specified. A service unit of this type is considered to be in the
212            activating state until the specified bus name is acquired. It is considered activated while the
213            bus name is taken. Once the bus name is released the service is considered being no longer
214            functional which has the effect that the service manager attempts to terminate any remaining
215            processes belonging to the service. Services that drop their bus name as part of their shutdown
216            logic thus should be prepared to receive a <constant>SIGTERM</constant> (or whichever signal is
217            configured in <varname>KillSignal=</varname>) as result.</para></listitem>
218
219            <listitem><para>Behavior of <option>notify</option> is similar to <option>exec</option>; however, it is
220            expected that the service sends a notification message via
221            <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry> or an
222            equivalent call when it has finished starting up. systemd will proceed with starting follow-up units after
223            this notification message has been sent. If this option is used, <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> (see
224            below) should be set to open access to the notification socket provided by systemd. If
225            <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> is missing or set to <option>none</option>, it will be forcibly set to
226            <option>main</option>.</para></listitem>
227
228            <listitem><para>Behavior of <option>idle</option> is very similar to <option>simple</option>; however,
229            actual execution of the service program is delayed until all active jobs are dispatched. This may be used
230            to avoid interleaving of output of shell services with the status output on the console. Note that this
231            type is useful only to improve console output, it is not useful as a general unit ordering tool, and the
232            effect of this service type is subject to a 5s timeout, after which the service program is invoked
233            anyway.</para></listitem>
234          </itemizedlist>
235
236          <para>It is generally recommended to use <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option> for long-running
237          services whenever possible, as it is the simplest and fastest option. However, as this service type won't
238          propagate service start-up failures and doesn't allow ordering of other units against completion of
239          initialization of the service (which for example is useful if clients need to connect to the service through
240          some form of IPC, and the IPC channel is only established by the service itself — in contrast to doing this
241          ahead of time through socket or bus activation or similar), it might not be sufficient for many cases. If so,
242          <option>notify</option> or <option>dbus</option> (the latter only in case the service provides a D-Bus
243          interface) are the preferred options as they allow service program code to precisely schedule when to
244          consider the service started up successfully and when to proceed with follow-up units. The
245          <option>notify</option> service type requires explicit support in the service codebase (as
246          <function>sd_notify()</function> or an equivalent API needs to be invoked by the service at the appropriate
247          time) — if it's not supported, then <option>forking</option> is an alternative: it supports the traditional
248          UNIX service start-up protocol. Finally, <option>exec</option> might be an option for cases where it is
249          enough to ensure the service binary is invoked, and where the service binary itself executes no or little
250          initialization on its own (and its initialization is unlikely to fail). Note that using any type other than
251          <option>simple</option> possibly delays the boot process, as the service manager needs to wait for service
252          initialization to complete. It is hence recommended not to needlessly use any types other than
253          <option>simple</option>. (Also note it is generally not recommended to use <option>idle</option> or
254          <option>oneshot</option> for long-running services.)</para>
255        </listitem>
256      </varlistentry>
257
258      <varlistentry>
259        <term><varname>ExitType=</varname></term>
260
261        <listitem>
262          <para>Specifies when the manager should consider the service to be finished. One of <option>main</option> or
263          <option>cgroup</option>:</para>
264
265          <itemizedlist>
266            <listitem><para>If set to <option>main</option> (the default), the service manager
267            will consider the unit stopped when the main process, which is determined according to the
268            <varname>Type=</varname>, exits. Consequently, it cannot be used with
269            <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>.</para></listitem>
270
271            <listitem><para>If set to <option>cgroup</option>, the service will be considered running as long as at
272            least one process in the cgroup has not exited.</para></listitem>
273          </itemizedlist>
274
275          <para>It is generally recommended to use <varname>ExitType=</varname><option>main</option> when a service has
276          a known forking model and a main process can reliably be determined. <varname>ExitType=</varname>
277          <option>cgroup</option> is meant for applications whose forking model is not known ahead of time and which
278          might not have a specific main process. It is well suited for transient or automatically generated services,
279          such as graphical applications inside of a desktop environment.</para>
280        </listitem>
281      </varlistentry>
282
283      <varlistentry>
284        <term><varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname></term>
285
286        <listitem><para>Takes a boolean value that specifies whether
287        the service shall be considered active even when all its
288        processes exited. Defaults to <option>no</option>.</para>
289        </listitem>
290      </varlistentry>
291
292      <varlistentry>
293        <term><varname>GuessMainPID=</varname></term>
294
295        <listitem><para>Takes a boolean value that specifies whether
296        systemd should try to guess the main PID of a service if it
297        cannot be determined reliably. This option is ignored unless
298        <option>Type=forking</option> is set and
299        <option>PIDFile=</option> is unset because for the other types
300        or with an explicitly configured PID file, the main PID is
301        always known. The guessing algorithm might come to incorrect
302        conclusions if a daemon consists of more than one process. If
303        the main PID cannot be determined, failure detection and
304        automatic restarting of a service will not work reliably.
305        Defaults to <option>yes</option>.</para>
306        </listitem>
307      </varlistentry>
308
309      <varlistentry>
310        <term><varname>PIDFile=</varname></term>
311
312        <listitem><para>Takes a path referring to the PID file of the service. Usage of this option is recommended for
313        services where <varname>Type=</varname> is set to <option>forking</option>. The path specified typically points
314        to a file below <filename>/run/</filename>. If a relative path is specified it is hence prefixed with
315        <filename>/run/</filename>. The service manager will read the PID of the main process of the service from this
316        file after start-up of the service. The service manager will not write to the file configured here, although it
317        will remove the file after the service has shut down if it still exists. The PID file does not need to be owned
318        by a privileged user, but if it is owned by an unprivileged user additional safety restrictions are enforced:
319        the file may not be a symlink to a file owned by a different user (neither directly nor indirectly), and the
320        PID file must refer to a process already belonging to the service.</para>
321
322        <para>Note that PID files should be avoided in modern projects. Use <option>Type=notify</option> or
323        <option>Type=simple</option> where possible, which does not require use of PID files to determine the
324        main process of a service and avoids needless forking.</para></listitem>
325      </varlistentry>
326
327      <varlistentry>
328        <term><varname>BusName=</varname></term>
329
330        <listitem><para>Takes a D-Bus destination name that this service shall use. This option is mandatory
331        for services where <varname>Type=</varname> is set to <option>dbus</option>. It is recommended to
332        always set this property if known to make it easy to map the service name to the D-Bus destination.
333        In particular, <command>systemctl service-log-level/service-log-target</command> verbs make use of
334        this.</para>
335        </listitem>
336      </varlistentry>
337
338      <varlistentry>
339        <term><varname>ExecStart=</varname></term>
340        <listitem><para>Commands with their arguments that are
341        executed when this service is started. The value is split into
342        zero or more command lines according to the rules described
343        below (see section "Command Lines" below).
344        </para>
345
346        <para>Unless <varname>Type=</varname> is <option>oneshot</option>, exactly one command must be given. When
347        <varname>Type=oneshot</varname> is used, zero or more commands may be specified. Commands may be specified by
348        providing multiple command lines in the same directive, or alternatively, this directive may be specified more
349        than once with the same effect. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list of commands to start
350        is reset, prior assignments of this option will have no effect. If no <varname>ExecStart=</varname> is
351        specified, then the service must have <varname>RemainAfterExit=yes</varname> and at least one
352        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> line set. (Services lacking both <varname>ExecStart=</varname> and
353        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> are not valid.)</para>
354
355        <para>For each of the specified commands, the first argument must be either an absolute path to an executable
356        or a simple file name without any slashes. Optionally, this filename may be prefixed with a number of special
357        characters:</para>
358
359        <table>
360          <title>Special executable prefixes</title>
361
362          <tgroup cols='2'>
363            <colspec colname='prefix'/>
364            <colspec colname='meaning'/>
365
366            <thead>
367              <row>
368                <entry>Prefix</entry>
369                <entry>Effect</entry>
370              </row>
371            </thead>
372            <tbody>
373              <row>
374                <entry><literal>@</literal></entry>
375                <entry>If the executable path is prefixed with <literal>@</literal>, the second specified token will be passed as <literal>argv[0]</literal> to the executed process (instead of the actual filename), followed by the further arguments specified.</entry>
376              </row>
377
378              <row>
379                <entry><literal>-</literal></entry>
380                <entry>If the executable path is prefixed with <literal>-</literal>, an exit code of the command normally considered a failure (i.e. non-zero exit status or abnormal exit due to signal) is recorded, but has no further effect and is considered equivalent to success.</entry>
381              </row>
382
383              <row>
384                <entry><literal>:</literal></entry>
385                <entry>If the executable path is prefixed with <literal>:</literal>, environment variable substitution (as described by the "Command Lines" section below) is not applied.</entry>
386              </row>
387
388              <row>
389                <entry><literal>+</literal></entry>
390                <entry>If the executable path is prefixed with <literal>+</literal> then the process is executed with full privileges. In this mode privilege restrictions configured with <varname>User=</varname>, <varname>Group=</varname>, <varname>CapabilityBoundingSet=</varname> or the various file system namespacing options (such as <varname>PrivateDevices=</varname>, <varname>PrivateTmp=</varname>) are not applied to the invoked command line (but still affect any other <varname>ExecStart=</varname>, <varname>ExecStop=</varname>, … lines).</entry>
391              </row>
392
393              <row>
394                <entry><literal>!</literal></entry>
395
396                <entry>Similar to the <literal>+</literal> character discussed above this permits invoking command lines with elevated privileges. However, unlike <literal>+</literal> the <literal>!</literal> character exclusively alters the effect of <varname>User=</varname>, <varname>Group=</varname> and <varname>SupplementaryGroups=</varname>, i.e. only the stanzas that affect user and group credentials. Note that this setting may be combined with <varname>DynamicUser=</varname>, in which case a dynamic user/group pair is allocated before the command is invoked, but credential changing is left to the executed process itself.</entry>
397              </row>
398
399              <row>
400                <entry><literal>!!</literal></entry>
401
402                <entry>This prefix is very similar to <literal>!</literal>, however it only has an effect on systems lacking support for ambient process capabilities, i.e. without support for <varname>AmbientCapabilities=</varname>. It's intended to be used for unit files that take benefit of ambient capabilities to run processes with minimal privileges wherever possible while remaining compatible with systems that lack ambient capabilities support. Note that when <literal>!!</literal> is used, and a system lacking ambient capability support is detected any configured <varname>SystemCallFilter=</varname> and <varname>CapabilityBoundingSet=</varname> stanzas are implicitly modified, in order to permit spawned processes to drop credentials and capabilities themselves, even if this is configured to not be allowed. Moreover, if this prefix is used and a system lacking ambient capability support is detected <varname>AmbientCapabilities=</varname> will be skipped and not be applied. On systems supporting ambient capabilities, <literal>!!</literal> has no effect and is redundant.</entry>
403              </row>
404            </tbody>
405          </tgroup>
406        </table>
407
408        <para><literal>@</literal>, <literal>-</literal>, <literal>:</literal>, and one of
409        <literal>+</literal>/<literal>!</literal>/<literal>!!</literal> may be used together and they can appear in any
410        order. However, only one of <literal>+</literal>, <literal>!</literal>, <literal>!!</literal> may be used at a
411        time. Note that these prefixes are also supported for the other command line settings,
412        i.e. <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>, <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname>, <varname>ExecReload=</varname>,
413        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> and <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname>.</para>
414
415        <para>If more than one command is specified, the commands are
416        invoked sequentially in the order they appear in the unit
417        file. If one of the commands fails (and is not prefixed with
418        <literal>-</literal>), other lines are not executed, and the
419        unit is considered failed.</para>
420
421        <para>Unless <varname>Type=forking</varname> is set, the
422        process started via this command line will be considered the
423        main process of the daemon.</para>
424        </listitem>
425      </varlistentry>
426
427      <varlistentry>
428        <term><varname>ExecStartPre=</varname></term>
429        <term><varname>ExecStartPost=</varname></term>
430        <listitem><para>Additional commands that are executed before
431        or after the command in <varname>ExecStart=</varname>,
432        respectively. Syntax is the same as for
433        <varname>ExecStart=</varname>, except that multiple command
434        lines are allowed and the commands are executed one after the
435        other, serially.</para>
436
437        <para>If any of those commands (not prefixed with
438        <literal>-</literal>) fail, the rest are not executed and the
439        unit is considered failed.</para>
440
441        <para><varname>ExecStart=</varname> commands are only run after
442        all <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname> commands that were not prefixed
443        with a <literal>-</literal> exit successfully.</para>
444
445        <para><varname>ExecStartPost=</varname> commands are only run after the commands specified in
446        <varname>ExecStart=</varname> have been invoked successfully, as determined by <varname>Type=</varname>
447        (i.e. the process has been started for <varname>Type=simple</varname> or <varname>Type=idle</varname>, the last
448        <varname>ExecStart=</varname> process exited successfully for <varname>Type=oneshot</varname>, the initial
449        process exited successfully for <varname>Type=forking</varname>, <literal>READY=1</literal> is sent for
450        <varname>Type=notify</varname>, or the <varname>BusName=</varname> has been taken for
451        <varname>Type=dbus</varname>).</para>
452
453        <para>Note that <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname> may not be
454        used to start long-running processes. All processes forked
455        off by processes invoked via <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname> will
456        be killed before the next service process is run.</para>
457
458        <para>Note that if any of the commands specified in <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>,
459        <varname>ExecStart=</varname>, or <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname> fail (and are not prefixed with
460        <literal>-</literal>, see above) or time out before the service is fully up, execution continues with commands
461        specified in <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname>, the commands in <varname>ExecStop=</varname> are skipped.</para>
462
463        <para>Note that the execution of <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname> is taken into account for the purpose of
464        <varname>Before=</varname>/<varname>After=</varname> ordering constraints.</para>
465        </listitem>
466      </varlistentry>
467
468      <varlistentry>
469        <term><varname>ExecCondition=</varname></term>
470        <listitem><para>Optional commands that are executed before the command(s) in <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>.
471        Syntax is the same as for <varname>ExecStart=</varname>, except that multiple command lines are allowed and the
472        commands are executed one after the other, serially.</para>
473
474        <para>The behavior is like an <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname> and condition check hybrid: when an
475        <varname>ExecCondition=</varname> command exits with exit code 1 through 254 (inclusive), the remaining
476        commands are skipped and the unit is <emphasis>not</emphasis> marked as failed. However, if an
477        <varname>ExecCondition=</varname> command exits with 255 or abnormally (e.g. timeout, killed by a
478        signal, etc.), the unit will be considered failed (and remaining commands will be skipped). Exit code of 0 or
479        those matching <varname>SuccessExitStatus=</varname> will continue execution to the next command(s).</para>
480
481        <para>The same recommendations about not running long-running processes in <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>
482        also applies to <varname>ExecCondition=</varname>. <varname>ExecCondition=</varname> will also run the commands
483        in <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname>, as part of stopping the service, in the case of any non-zero or abnormal
484        exits, like the ones described above.</para>
485        </listitem>
486      </varlistentry>
487
488      <varlistentry>
489        <term><varname>ExecReload=</varname></term>
490        <listitem><para>Commands to execute to trigger a configuration
491        reload in the service. This argument takes multiple command
492        lines, following the same scheme as described for
493        <varname>ExecStart=</varname> above. Use of this setting is
494        optional. Specifier and environment variable substitution is
495        supported here following the same scheme as for
496        <varname>ExecStart=</varname>.</para>
497
498        <para>One additional, special environment variable is set: if
499        known, <varname>$MAINPID</varname> is set to the main process
500        of the daemon, and may be used for command lines like the
501        following:</para>
502
503        <programlisting>ExecReload=kill -HUP $MAINPID</programlisting>
504
505        <para>Note however that reloading a daemon by sending a signal
506        (as with the example line above) is usually not a good choice,
507        because this is an asynchronous operation and hence not
508        suitable to order reloads of multiple services against each
509        other. It is strongly recommended to set
510        <varname>ExecReload=</varname> to a command that not only
511        triggers a configuration reload of the daemon, but also
512        synchronously waits for it to complete. For example,
513        <citerefentry project='mankier'><refentrytitle>dbus-broker</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
514        uses the following:</para>
515
516        <programlisting>ExecReload=busctl call org.freedesktop.DBus \
517        /org/freedesktop/DBus org.freedesktop.DBus \
518        ReloadConfig
519</programlisting>
520        </listitem>
521      </varlistentry>
522
523      <varlistentry>
524        <term><varname>ExecStop=</varname></term>
525        <listitem><para>Commands to execute to stop the service started via
526        <varname>ExecStart=</varname>. This argument takes multiple command lines, following the same scheme
527        as described for <varname>ExecStart=</varname> above. Use of this setting is optional. After the
528        commands configured in this option are run, it is implied that the service is stopped, and any
529        processes remaining for it are terminated according to the <varname>KillMode=</varname> setting (see
530        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
531        If this option is not specified, the process is terminated by sending the signal specified in
532        <varname>KillSignal=</varname> or <varname>RestartKillSignal=</varname> when service stop is
533        requested. Specifier and environment variable substitution is supported (including
534        <varname>$MAINPID</varname>, see above).</para>
535
536        <para>Note that it is usually not sufficient to specify a command for this setting that only asks the
537        service to terminate (for example, by sending some form of termination signal to it), but does not
538        wait for it to do so. Since the remaining processes of the services are killed according to
539        <varname>KillMode=</varname> and <varname>KillSignal=</varname> or
540        <varname>RestartKillSignal=</varname> as described above immediately after the command exited, this
541        may not result in a clean stop. The specified command should hence be a synchronous operation, not an
542        asynchronous one.</para>
543
544        <para>Note that the commands specified in <varname>ExecStop=</varname> are only executed when the service
545        started successfully first. They are not invoked if the service was never started at all, or in case its
546        start-up failed, for example because any of the commands specified in <varname>ExecStart=</varname>,
547        <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname> or <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname> failed (and weren't prefixed with
548        <literal>-</literal>, see above) or timed out. Use <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> to invoke commands when a
549        service failed to start up correctly and is shut down again. Also note that the stop operation is always
550        performed if the service started successfully, even if the processes in the service terminated on their
551        own or were killed. The stop commands must be prepared to deal with that case. <varname>$MAINPID</varname>
552        will be unset if systemd knows that the main process exited by the time the stop commands are called.</para>
553
554        <para>Service restart requests are implemented as stop operations followed by start operations. This
555        means that <varname>ExecStop=</varname> and <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> are executed during a
556        service restart operation.</para>
557
558        <para>It is recommended to use this setting for commands that communicate with the service requesting
559        clean termination. For post-mortem clean-up steps use <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> instead.
560        </para></listitem>
561      </varlistentry>
562
563      <varlistentry>
564        <term><varname>ExecStopPost=</varname></term>
565        <listitem><para>Additional commands that are executed after the service is stopped. This includes cases where
566        the commands configured in <varname>ExecStop=</varname> were used, where the service does not have any
567        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> defined, or where the service exited unexpectedly. This argument takes multiple
568        command lines, following the same scheme as described for <varname>ExecStart=</varname>. Use of these settings
569        is optional. Specifier and environment variable substitution is supported. Note that – unlike
570        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> – commands specified with this setting are invoked when a service failed to start
571        up correctly and is shut down again.</para>
572
573        <para>It is recommended to use this setting for clean-up operations that shall be executed even when the
574        service failed to start up correctly. Commands configured with this setting need to be able to operate even if
575        the service failed starting up half-way and left incompletely initialized data around. As the service's
576        processes have been terminated already when the commands specified with this setting are executed they should
577        not attempt to communicate with them.</para>
578
579        <para>Note that all commands that are configured with this setting are invoked with the result code of the
580        service, as well as the main process' exit code and status, set in the <varname>$SERVICE_RESULT</varname>,
581        <varname>$EXIT_CODE</varname> and <varname>$EXIT_STATUS</varname> environment variables, see
582        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
583        details.</para>
584
585        <para>Note that the execution of <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> is taken into account for the purpose of
586        <varname>Before=</varname>/<varname>After=</varname> ordering constraints.</para></listitem>
587      </varlistentry>
588
589      <varlistentry>
590        <term><varname>RestartSec=</varname></term>
591        <listitem><para>Configures the time to sleep before restarting
592        a service (as configured with <varname>Restart=</varname>).
593        Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a time span value such
594        as "5min 20s". Defaults to 100ms.</para></listitem>
595      </varlistentry>
596
597      <varlistentry>
598        <term><varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname></term>
599        <listitem><para>Configures the time to wait for start-up. If a daemon service does not signal start-up
600        completion within the configured time, the service will be considered failed and will be shut down again. The
601        precise action depends on the <varname>TimeoutStartFailureMode=</varname> option. Takes a unit-less value in
602        seconds, or a time span value such as "5min 20s". Pass <literal>infinity</literal> to disable the timeout logic.
603        Defaults to <varname>DefaultTimeoutStartSec=</varname> from the manager configuration file, except when
604        <varname>Type=oneshot</varname> is used, in which case the timeout is disabled by default (see
605        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-system.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
606        </para>
607
608        <para>If a service of <varname>Type=notify</varname> sends <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal>, this may cause
609        the start time to be extended beyond <varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname>. The first receipt of this message
610        must occur before <varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname> is exceeded, and once the start time has extended beyond
611        <varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname>, the service manager will allow the service to continue to start, provided
612        the service repeats <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal> within the interval specified until the service
613        startup status is finished by <literal>READY=1</literal>. (see
614        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
615        </para></listitem>
616      </varlistentry>
617
618      <varlistentry>
619        <term><varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname></term>
620        <listitem><para>This option serves two purposes. First, it configures the time to wait for each
621        <varname>ExecStop=</varname> command. If any of them times out, subsequent <varname>ExecStop=</varname> commands
622        are skipped and the service will be terminated by <constant>SIGTERM</constant>. If no <varname>ExecStop=</varname>
623        commands are specified, the service gets the <constant>SIGTERM</constant> immediately. This default behavior
624        can be changed by the <varname>TimeoutStopFailureMode=</varname> option. Second, it configures the time
625        to wait for the service itself to stop. If it doesn't terminate in the specified time, it will be forcibly terminated
626        by <constant>SIGKILL</constant> (see <varname>KillMode=</varname> in
627        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
628        Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a time span value such
629        as "5min 20s". Pass <literal>infinity</literal> to disable the
630        timeout logic. Defaults to
631        <varname>DefaultTimeoutStopSec=</varname> from the manager
632        configuration file (see
633        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-system.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
634        </para>
635
636        <para>If a service of <varname>Type=notify</varname> sends <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal>, this may cause
637        the stop time to be extended beyond <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>. The first receipt of this message
638        must occur before <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname> is exceeded, and once the stop time has extended beyond
639        <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>, the service manager will allow the service to continue to stop, provided
640        the service repeats <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal> within the interval specified, or terminates itself
641        (see <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
642        </para></listitem>
643      </varlistentry>
644
645      <varlistentry>
646        <term><varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname></term>
647        <listitem><para>This option configures the time to wait for the service to terminate when it was aborted due to a
648        watchdog timeout (see <varname>WatchdogSec=</varname>). If the service has a short <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>
649        this option can be used to give the system more time to write a core dump of the service. Upon expiration the service
650        will be forcibly terminated by <constant>SIGKILL</constant> (see <varname>KillMode=</varname> in
651        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>). The core file will
652        be truncated in this case. Use <varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname> to set a sensible timeout for the core dumping per
653        service that is large enough to write all expected data while also being short enough to handle the service failure
654        in due time.
655        </para>
656
657        <para>Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a time span value such as "5min 20s". Pass an empty value to skip
658        the dedicated watchdog abort timeout handling and fall back <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>. Pass
659        <literal>infinity</literal> to disable the timeout logic. Defaults to <varname>DefaultTimeoutAbortSec=</varname> from
660        the manager configuration file (see
661        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-system.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
662        </para>
663
664        <para>If a service of <varname>Type=notify</varname> handles <constant>SIGABRT</constant> itself (instead of relying
665        on the kernel to write a core dump) it can send <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal> to
666        extended the abort time beyond <varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname>. The first receipt of this message
667        must occur before <varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname> is exceeded, and once the abort time has extended beyond
668        <varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname>, the service manager will allow the service to continue to abort, provided
669        the service repeats <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal> within the interval specified, or terminates itself
670        (see <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
671        </para></listitem>
672      </varlistentry>
673
674      <varlistentry>
675        <term><varname>TimeoutSec=</varname></term>
676        <listitem><para>A shorthand for configuring both
677        <varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname> and
678        <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname> to the specified value.
679        </para></listitem>
680      </varlistentry>
681
682      <varlistentry>
683        <term><varname>TimeoutStartFailureMode=</varname></term>
684        <term><varname>TimeoutStopFailureMode=</varname></term>
685
686        <listitem><para>These options configure the action that is taken in case a daemon service does not signal
687        start-up within its configured <varname>TimeoutStartSec=</varname>, respectively if it does not stop within
688        <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>. Takes one of <option>terminate</option>, <option>abort</option> and
689        <option>kill</option>. Both options default to <option>terminate</option>.</para>
690
691        <para>If <option>terminate</option> is set the service will be gracefully terminated by sending the signal
692        specified in <varname>KillSignal=</varname> (defaults to <constant>SIGTERM</constant>, see
693        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>). If the
694        service does not terminate the <varname>FinalKillSignal=</varname> is sent after
695        <varname>TimeoutStopSec=</varname>. If <option>abort</option> is set, <varname>WatchdogSignal=</varname> is sent
696        instead and <varname>TimeoutAbortSec=</varname> applies before sending <varname>FinalKillSignal=</varname>.
697        This setting may be used to analyze services that fail to start-up or shut-down intermittently.
698        By using <option>kill</option> the service is immediately terminated by sending
699        <varname>FinalKillSignal=</varname> without any further timeout. This setting can be used to expedite the
700        shutdown of failing services.
701        </para></listitem>
702      </varlistentry>
703
704      <varlistentry>
705        <term><varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname></term>
706
707        <listitem><para>Configures a maximum time for the service to run. If this is used and the service has been
708        active for longer than the specified time it is terminated and put into a failure state. Note that this setting
709        does not have any effect on <varname>Type=oneshot</varname> services, as they terminate immediately after
710        activation completed. Pass <literal>infinity</literal> (the default) to configure no runtime
711        limit.</para>
712
713        <para>If a service of <varname>Type=notify</varname> sends <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal>, this may cause
714        the runtime to be extended beyond <varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname>. The first receipt of this message
715        must occur before <varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname> is exceeded, and once the runtime has extended beyond
716        <varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname>, the service manager will allow the service to continue to run, provided
717        the service repeats <literal>EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=…</literal> within the interval specified until the service
718        shutdown is achieved by <literal>STOPPING=1</literal> (or termination). (see
719        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>).
720        </para></listitem>
721      </varlistentry>
722
723      <varlistentry>
724        <term><varname>RuntimeRandomizedExtraSec=</varname></term>
725
726        <listitem><para>This option modifies <varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname> by increasing the maximum runtime by an
727        evenly distributed duration between 0 and the specified value (in seconds). If <varname>RuntimeMaxSec=</varname> is
728        unspecified, then this feature will be disabled.
729        </para></listitem>
730      </varlistentry>
731
732      <varlistentry>
733        <term><varname>WatchdogSec=</varname></term>
734        <listitem><para>Configures the watchdog timeout for a service.
735        The watchdog is activated when the start-up is completed. The
736        service must call
737        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>
738        regularly with <literal>WATCHDOG=1</literal> (i.e. the
739        "keep-alive ping"). If the time between two such calls is
740        larger than the configured time, then the service is placed in
741        a failed state and it will be terminated with
742        <constant>SIGABRT</constant> (or the signal specified by
743        <varname>WatchdogSignal=</varname>). By setting
744        <varname>Restart=</varname> to <option>on-failure</option>,
745        <option>on-watchdog</option>, <option>on-abnormal</option> or
746        <option>always</option>, the service will be automatically
747        restarted. The time configured here will be passed to the
748        executed service process in the
749        <varname>WATCHDOG_USEC=</varname> environment variable. This
750        allows daemons to automatically enable the keep-alive pinging
751        logic if watchdog support is enabled for the service. If this
752        option is used, <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> (see below)
753        should be set to open access to the notification socket
754        provided by systemd. If <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> is
755        not set, it will be implicitly set to <option>main</option>.
756        Defaults to 0, which disables this feature. The service can
757        check whether the service manager expects watchdog keep-alive
758        notifications. See
759        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_watchdog_enabled</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>
760        for details.
761        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_event_set_watchdog</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>
762        may be used to enable automatic watchdog notification support.
763        </para></listitem>
764      </varlistentry>
765
766      <varlistentry>
767        <term><varname>Restart=</varname></term>
768        <listitem><para>Configures whether the service shall be
769        restarted when the service process exits, is killed, or a
770        timeout is reached. The service process may be the main
771        service process, but it may also be one of the processes
772        specified with <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>,
773        <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname>,
774        <varname>ExecStop=</varname>,
775        <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname>, or
776        <varname>ExecReload=</varname>. When the death of the process
777        is a result of systemd operation (e.g. service stop or
778        restart), the service will not be restarted. Timeouts include
779        missing the watchdog "keep-alive ping" deadline and a service
780        start, reload, and stop operation timeouts.</para>
781
782        <para>Takes one of
783        <option>no</option>,
784        <option>on-success</option>,
785        <option>on-failure</option>,
786        <option>on-abnormal</option>,
787        <option>on-watchdog</option>,
788        <option>on-abort</option>, or
789        <option>always</option>.
790        If set to <option>no</option> (the default), the service will
791        not be restarted. If set to <option>on-success</option>, it
792        will be restarted only when the service process exits cleanly.
793        In this context, a clean exit means any of the following:
794        <itemizedlist>
795            <listitem><simpara>exit code of 0;</simpara></listitem>
796            <listitem><simpara>for types other than
797            <varname>Type=oneshot</varname>, one of the signals
798                <constant>SIGHUP</constant>,
799                <constant>SIGINT</constant>,
800                <constant>SIGTERM</constant>, or
801                <constant>SIGPIPE</constant>;</simpara></listitem>
802            <listitem><simpara>exit statuses and signals specified in
803                <varname>SuccessExitStatus=</varname>.</simpara></listitem>
804        </itemizedlist>
805        If set to
806        <option>on-failure</option>, the service will be restarted
807        when the process exits with a non-zero exit code, is
808        terminated by a signal (including on core dump, but excluding
809        the aforementioned four signals), when an operation (such as
810        service reload) times out, and when the configured watchdog
811        timeout is triggered. If set to <option>on-abnormal</option>,
812        the service will be restarted when the process is terminated
813        by a signal (including on core dump, excluding the
814        aforementioned four signals), when an operation times out, or
815        when the watchdog timeout is triggered. If set to
816        <option>on-abort</option>, the service will be restarted only
817        if the service process exits due to an uncaught signal not
818        specified as a clean exit status. If set to
819        <option>on-watchdog</option>, the service will be restarted
820        only if the watchdog timeout for the service expires. If set
821        to <option>always</option>, the service will be restarted
822        regardless of whether it exited cleanly or not, got terminated
823        abnormally by a signal, or hit a timeout.</para>
824
825        <table>
826          <title>Exit causes and the effect of the <varname>Restart=</varname> settings</title>
827
828          <tgroup cols='2'>
829            <colspec colname='path' />
830            <colspec colname='expl' />
831            <thead>
832              <row>
833                <entry>Restart settings/Exit causes</entry>
834                <entry><option>no</option></entry>
835                <entry><option>always</option></entry>
836                <entry><option>on-success</option></entry>
837                <entry><option>on-failure</option></entry>
838                <entry><option>on-abnormal</option></entry>
839                <entry><option>on-abort</option></entry>
840                <entry><option>on-watchdog</option></entry>
841              </row>
842            </thead>
843            <tbody>
844              <row>
845                <entry>Clean exit code or signal</entry>
846                <entry/>
847                <entry>X</entry>
848                <entry>X</entry>
849                <entry/>
850                <entry/>
851                <entry/>
852                <entry/>
853              </row>
854              <row>
855                <entry>Unclean exit code</entry>
856                <entry/>
857                <entry>X</entry>
858                <entry/>
859                <entry>X</entry>
860                <entry/>
861                <entry/>
862                <entry/>
863              </row>
864              <row>
865                <entry>Unclean signal</entry>
866                <entry/>
867                <entry>X</entry>
868                <entry/>
869                <entry>X</entry>
870                <entry>X</entry>
871                <entry>X</entry>
872                <entry/>
873              </row>
874              <row>
875                <entry>Timeout</entry>
876                <entry/>
877                <entry>X</entry>
878                <entry/>
879                <entry>X</entry>
880                <entry>X</entry>
881                <entry/>
882                <entry/>
883              </row>
884              <row>
885                <entry>Watchdog</entry>
886                <entry/>
887                <entry>X</entry>
888                <entry/>
889                <entry>X</entry>
890                <entry>X</entry>
891                <entry/>
892                <entry>X</entry>
893              </row>
894            </tbody>
895          </tgroup>
896        </table>
897
898        <para>As exceptions to the setting above, the service will not
899        be restarted if the exit code or signal is specified in
900        <varname>RestartPreventExitStatus=</varname> (see below) or
901        the service is stopped with <command>systemctl stop</command>
902        or an equivalent operation. Also, the services will always be
903        restarted if the exit code or signal is specified in
904        <varname>RestartForceExitStatus=</varname> (see below).</para>
905
906        <para>Note that service restart is subject to unit start rate
907        limiting configured with <varname>StartLimitIntervalSec=</varname>
908        and <varname>StartLimitBurst=</varname>, see
909        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
910        for details.  A restarted service enters the failed state only
911        after the start limits are reached.</para>
912
913        <para>Setting this to <option>on-failure</option> is the
914        recommended choice for long-running services, in order to
915        increase reliability by attempting automatic recovery from
916        errors. For services that shall be able to terminate on their
917        own choice (and avoid immediate restarting),
918        <option>on-abnormal</option> is an alternative choice.</para>
919        </listitem>
920      </varlistentry>
921
922      <varlistentry>
923        <term><varname>SuccessExitStatus=</varname></term>
924
925        <listitem><para>Takes a list of exit status definitions that, when returned by the main service
926        process, will be considered successful termination, in addition to the normal successful exit status
927        0 and, except for <varname>Type=oneshot</varname>, the signals <constant>SIGHUP</constant>, <constant>SIGINT</constant>,
928        <constant>SIGTERM</constant>, and <constant>SIGPIPE</constant>. Exit status definitions can be
929        numeric termination statuses, termination status names, or termination signal names, separated by
930        spaces. See the Process Exit Codes section in
931        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
932        a list of termination status names (for this setting only the part without the
933        <literal>EXIT_</literal> or <literal>EX_</literal> prefix should be used). See <citerefentry
934        project='man-pages'><refentrytitle>signal</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
935        a list of signal names.</para>
936
937        <para>Note that this setting does not change the mapping between numeric exit statuses and their
938        names, i.e. regardless how this setting is used 0 will still be mapped to <literal>SUCCESS</literal>
939        (and thus typically shown as <literal>0/SUCCESS</literal> in tool outputs) and 1 to
940        <literal>FAILURE</literal> (and thus typically shown as <literal>1/FAILURE</literal>), and so on. It
941        only controls what happens as effect of these exit statuses, and how it propagates to the state of
942        the service as a whole.</para>
943
944        <para>This option may appear more than once, in which case the list of successful exit statuses is
945        merged. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list is reset, all prior assignments of
946        this option will have no effect.</para>
947
948        <example>
949          <title>A service with the <varname>SuccessExitStatus=</varname> setting</title>
950
951          <programlisting>SuccessExitStatus=TEMPFAIL 250 SIGKILL</programlisting>
952
953          <para>Exit status 75 (<constant>TEMPFAIL</constant>), 250, and the termination signal
954          <constant>SIGKILL</constant> are considered clean service terminations.</para>
955        </example>
956
957        <para>Note: <command>systemd-analyze exit-status</command> may be used to list exit statuses and
958        translate between numerical status values and names.</para></listitem>
959      </varlistentry>
960
961      <varlistentry>
962        <term><varname>RestartPreventExitStatus=</varname></term>
963
964        <listitem><para>Takes a list of exit status definitions that, when returned by the main service
965        process, will prevent automatic service restarts, regardless of the restart setting configured with
966        <varname>Restart=</varname>. Exit status definitions can either be numeric exit codes or termination
967        signal names, and are separated by spaces. Defaults to the empty list, so that, by default, no exit
968        status is excluded from the configured restart logic. For example:
969
970        <programlisting>RestartPreventExitStatus=1 6 SIGABRT</programlisting>
971
972        ensures that exit codes 1 and 6 and the termination signal <constant>SIGABRT</constant> will not
973        result in automatic service restarting. This option may appear more than once, in which case the list
974        of restart-preventing statuses is merged. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list is
975        reset and all prior assignments of this option will have no effect.</para>
976
977        <para>Note that this setting has no effect on processes configured via
978        <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>, <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname>, <varname>ExecStop=</varname>,
979        <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> or <varname>ExecReload=</varname>, but only on the main service
980        process, i.e. either the one invoked by <varname>ExecStart=</varname> or (depending on
981        <varname>Type=</varname>, <varname>PIDFile=</varname>, …) the otherwise configured main
982        process.</para></listitem>
983      </varlistentry>
984
985      <varlistentry>
986        <term><varname>RestartForceExitStatus=</varname></term>
987        <listitem><para>Takes a list of exit status definitions that,
988        when returned by the main service process, will force automatic
989        service restarts, regardless of the restart setting configured
990        with <varname>Restart=</varname>. The argument format is
991        similar to
992        <varname>RestartPreventExitStatus=</varname>.</para></listitem>
993      </varlistentry>
994
995      <varlistentry>
996        <term><varname>RootDirectoryStartOnly=</varname></term>
997        <listitem><para>Takes a boolean argument. If true, the root
998        directory, as configured with the
999        <varname>RootDirectory=</varname> option (see
1000        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1001        for more information), is only applied to the process started
1002        with <varname>ExecStart=</varname>, and not to the various
1003        other <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>,
1004        <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname>,
1005        <varname>ExecReload=</varname>, <varname>ExecStop=</varname>,
1006        and <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> commands. If false, the
1007        setting is applied to all configured commands the same way.
1008        Defaults to false.</para></listitem>
1009      </varlistentry>
1010
1011      <varlistentry>
1012        <term><varname>NonBlocking=</varname></term>
1013        <listitem><para>Set the <constant>O_NONBLOCK</constant> flag for all file descriptors passed via socket-based
1014        activation. If true, all file descriptors >= 3 (i.e. all except stdin, stdout, stderr), excluding those passed
1015        in via the file descriptor storage logic (see <varname>FileDescriptorStoreMax=</varname> for details), will
1016        have the <constant>O_NONBLOCK</constant> flag set and hence are in non-blocking mode. This option is only
1017        useful in conjunction with a socket unit, as described in
1018        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.socket</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> and has no
1019        effect on file descriptors which were previously saved in the file-descriptor store for example.  Defaults to
1020        false.</para></listitem>
1021      </varlistentry>
1022
1023      <varlistentry>
1024        <term><varname>NotifyAccess=</varname></term>
1025        <listitem><para>Controls access to the service status notification socket, as accessible via the
1026        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry> call. Takes one
1027        of <option>none</option> (the default), <option>main</option>, <option>exec</option> or
1028        <option>all</option>. If <option>none</option>, no daemon status updates are accepted from the service
1029        processes, all status update messages are ignored. If <option>main</option>, only service updates sent from the
1030        main process of the service are accepted. If <option>exec</option>, only service updates sent from any of the
1031        main or control processes originating from one of the <varname>Exec*=</varname> commands are accepted. If
1032        <option>all</option>, all services updates from all members of the service's control group are accepted. This
1033        option should be set to open access to the notification socket when using <varname>Type=notify</varname> or
1034        <varname>WatchdogSec=</varname> (see above). If those options are used but <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> is
1035        not configured, it will be implicitly set to <option>main</option>.</para>
1036
1037        <para>Note that <function>sd_notify()</function> notifications may be attributed to units correctly only if
1038        either the sending process is still around at the time PID 1 processes the message, or if the sending process
1039        is explicitly runtime-tracked by the service manager. The latter is the case if the service manager originally
1040        forked off the process, i.e. on all processes that match <option>main</option> or
1041        <option>exec</option>. Conversely, if an auxiliary process of the unit sends an
1042        <function>sd_notify()</function> message and immediately exits, the service manager might not be able to
1043        properly attribute the message to the unit, and thus will ignore it, even if
1044        <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname><option>all</option> is set for it.</para>
1045
1046        <para>Hence, to eliminate all race conditions involving lookup of the client's unit and attribution of notifications
1047        to units correctly, <function>sd_notify_barrier()</function> may be used. This call acts as a synchronization point
1048        and ensures all notifications sent before this call have been picked up by the service manager when it returns
1049        successfully. Use of <function>sd_notify_barrier()</function> is needed for clients which are not invoked by the
1050        service manager, otherwise this synchronization mechanism is unnecessary for attribution of notifications to the
1051        unit.</para></listitem>
1052      </varlistentry>
1053
1054      <varlistentry>
1055        <term><varname>Sockets=</varname></term>
1056        <listitem><para>Specifies the name of the socket units this
1057        service shall inherit socket file descriptors from when the
1058        service is started. Normally, it should not be necessary to use
1059        this setting, as all socket file descriptors whose unit shares
1060        the same name as the service (subject to the different unit
1061        name suffix of course) are passed to the spawned
1062        process.</para>
1063
1064        <para>Note that the same socket file descriptors may be passed
1065        to multiple processes simultaneously. Also note that a
1066        different service may be activated on incoming socket traffic
1067        than the one which is ultimately configured to inherit the
1068        socket file descriptors. Or, in other words: the
1069        <varname>Service=</varname> setting of
1070        <filename>.socket</filename> units does not have to match the
1071        inverse of the <varname>Sockets=</varname> setting of the
1072        <filename>.service</filename> it refers to.</para>
1073
1074        <para>This option may appear more than once, in which case the list of socket units is merged. Note
1075        that once set, clearing the list of sockets again (for example, by assigning the empty string to this
1076        option) is not supported.</para></listitem>
1077      </varlistentry>
1078
1079      <varlistentry>
1080        <term><varname>FileDescriptorStoreMax=</varname></term>
1081        <listitem><para>Configure how many file descriptors may be stored in the service manager for the
1082        service using
1083        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_pid_notify_with_fds</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>'s
1084        <literal>FDSTORE=1</literal> messages. This is useful for implementing services that can restart
1085        after an explicit request or a crash without losing state. Any open sockets and other file
1086        descriptors which should not be closed during the restart may be stored this way. Application state
1087        can either be serialized to a file in <filename>/run/</filename>, or better, stored in a
1088        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>memfd_create</refentrytitle><manvolnum>2</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1089        memory file descriptor. Defaults to 0, i.e. no file descriptors may be stored in the service
1090        manager. All file descriptors passed to the service manager from a specific service are passed back
1091        to the service's main process on the next service restart (see
1092        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_listen_fds</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
1093        details about the precise protocol used and the order in which the file descriptors are passed). Any
1094        file descriptors passed to the service manager are automatically closed when
1095        <constant>POLLHUP</constant> or <constant>POLLERR</constant> is seen on them, or when the service is
1096        fully stopped and no job is queued or being executed for it. If this option is used,
1097        <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> (see above) should be set to open access to the notification socket
1098        provided by systemd. If <varname>NotifyAccess=</varname> is not set, it will be implicitly set to
1099        <option>main</option>.</para></listitem>
1100      </varlistentry>
1101
1102      <varlistentry>
1103        <term><varname>USBFunctionDescriptors=</varname></term>
1104        <listitem><para>Configure the location of a file containing
1105        <ulink
1106        url="https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/usb/functionfs.txt">USB
1107        FunctionFS</ulink> descriptors, for implementation of USB
1108        gadget functions. This is used only in conjunction with a
1109        socket unit with <varname>ListenUSBFunction=</varname>
1110        configured. The contents of this file are written to the
1111        <filename>ep0</filename> file after it is
1112        opened.</para></listitem>
1113      </varlistentry>
1114
1115      <varlistentry>
1116        <term><varname>USBFunctionStrings=</varname></term>
1117        <listitem><para>Configure the location of a file containing
1118        USB FunctionFS strings.  Behavior is similar to
1119        <varname>USBFunctionDescriptors=</varname>
1120        above.</para></listitem>
1121      </varlistentry>
1122
1123      <varlistentry>
1124        <term><varname>OOMPolicy=</varname></term>
1125
1126        <listitem><para>Configure the out-of-memory (OOM) kernel killer policy. Note that the userspace OOM
1127        killer
1128        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-oomd.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1129        is a more flexible solution that aims to prevent out-of-memory situations for the userspace, not just
1130        the kernel.</para>
1131
1132        <para>On Linux, when memory becomes scarce to the point that the kernel has trouble allocating memory
1133        for itself, it might decide to kill a running process in order to free up memory and reduce memory
1134        pressure. This setting takes one of <constant>continue</constant>, <constant>stop</constant> or
1135        <constant>kill</constant>. If set to <constant>continue</constant> and a process of the service is
1136        killed by the kernel's OOM killer this is logged but the service continues running. If set to
1137        <constant>stop</constant> the event is logged but the service is terminated cleanly by the service
1138        manager. If set to <constant>kill</constant> and one of the service's processes is killed by the OOM
1139        killer the kernel is instructed to kill all remaining processes of the service too, by setting the
1140        <filename>memory.oom.group</filename> attribute to <constant>1</constant>; also see <ulink
1141        url="https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/cgroup-v2.html">kernel documentation</ulink>.
1142        </para>
1143
1144        <para>Defaults to the setting <varname>DefaultOOMPolicy=</varname> in
1145        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-system.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1146        is set to, except for services where <varname>Delegate=</varname> is turned on, where it defaults to
1147        <constant>continue</constant>.</para>
1148
1149        <para>Use the <varname>OOMScoreAdjust=</varname> setting to configure whether processes of the unit
1150        shall be considered preferred or less preferred candidates for process termination by the Linux OOM
1151        killer logic. See
1152        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> for
1153        details.</para>
1154
1155        <para>This setting also applies to <command>systemd-oomd</command>, similar to the kernel OOM kills
1156        this setting determines the state of the service after <command>systemd-oomd</command> kills a cgroup
1157        associated with the service.</para></listitem>
1158      </varlistentry>
1159
1160    </variablelist>
1161
1162    <para id='shared-unit-options'>Check
1163    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1164    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>, and
1165    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry> for more
1166    settings.</para>
1167  </refsect1>
1168
1169  <refsect1>
1170    <title>Command lines</title>
1171
1172    <para>This section describes command line parsing and
1173    variable and specifier substitutions for
1174    <varname>ExecStart=</varname>,
1175    <varname>ExecStartPre=</varname>,
1176    <varname>ExecStartPost=</varname>,
1177    <varname>ExecReload=</varname>,
1178    <varname>ExecStop=</varname>, and
1179    <varname>ExecStopPost=</varname> options.</para>
1180
1181    <para>Multiple command lines may be concatenated in a single directive by separating them with semicolons
1182    (these semicolons must be passed as separate words). Lone semicolons may be escaped as
1183    <literal>\;</literal>.</para>
1184
1185    <para>Each command line is unquoted using the rules described in "Quoting" section in
1186    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.syntax</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>. The
1187    first item becomes the command to execute, and the subsequent items the arguments.</para>
1188
1189    <para>This syntax is inspired by shell syntax, but only the meta-characters and expansions
1190    described in the following paragraphs are understood, and the expansion of variables is
1191    different. Specifically, redirection using
1192    <literal>&lt;</literal>,
1193    <literal>&lt;&lt;</literal>,
1194    <literal>&gt;</literal>, and
1195    <literal>&gt;&gt;</literal>, pipes using
1196    <literal>|</literal>, running programs in the background using
1197    <literal>&amp;</literal>, and <emphasis>other elements of shell
1198    syntax are not supported</emphasis>.</para>
1199
1200    <para>The command to execute may contain spaces, but control characters are not allowed.</para>
1201
1202    <para>The command line accepts <literal>%</literal> specifiers as described in
1203    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
1204
1205    <para>Basic environment variable substitution is supported. Use
1206    <literal>${FOO}</literal> as part of a word, or as a word of its
1207    own, on the command line, in which case it will be erased and replaced
1208    by the exact value of the environment variable (if any) including all
1209    whitespace it contains, always resulting in exactly a single argument.
1210    Use <literal>$FOO</literal> as a separate word on the command line, in
1211    which case it will be replaced by the value of the environment
1212    variable split at whitespace, resulting in zero or more arguments.
1213    For this type of expansion, quotes are respected when splitting
1214    into words, and afterwards removed.</para>
1215
1216    <para>If the command is not a full (absolute) path, it will be resolved to a full path using a
1217    fixed search path determined at compilation time. Searched directories include
1218    <filename>/usr/local/bin/</filename>, <filename>/usr/bin/</filename>, <filename>/bin/</filename>
1219    on systems using split <filename>/usr/bin/</filename> and <filename>/bin/</filename>
1220    directories, and their <filename>sbin/</filename> counterparts on systems using split
1221    <filename>bin/</filename> and <filename>sbin/</filename>. It is thus safe to use just the
1222    executable name in case of executables located in any of the "standard" directories, and an
1223    absolute path must be used in other cases. Using an absolute path is recommended to avoid
1224    ambiguity. Hint: this search path may be queried using
1225    <command>systemd-path search-binaries-default</command>.</para>
1226
1227    <para>Example:</para>
1228
1229    <programlisting>Environment="ONE=one" 'TWO=two two'
1230ExecStart=echo $ONE $TWO ${TWO}</programlisting>
1231
1232    <para>This will execute <command>/bin/echo</command> with four
1233    arguments: <literal>one</literal>, <literal>two</literal>,
1234    <literal>two</literal>, and <literal>two two</literal>.</para>
1235
1236    <para>Example:</para>
1237    <programlisting>Environment=ONE='one' "TWO='two two' too" THREE=
1238ExecStart=/bin/echo ${ONE} ${TWO} ${THREE}
1239ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO $THREE</programlisting>
1240    <para>This results in <filename>/bin/echo</filename> being
1241    called twice, the first time with arguments
1242    <literal>'one'</literal>,
1243    <literal>'two two' too</literal>, <literal></literal>,
1244    and the second time with arguments
1245    <literal>one</literal>, <literal>two two</literal>,
1246    <literal>too</literal>.
1247    </para>
1248
1249    <para>To pass a literal dollar sign, use <literal>$$</literal>.
1250    Variables whose value is not known at expansion time are treated
1251    as empty strings. Note that the first argument (i.e. the program
1252    to execute) may not be a variable.</para>
1253
1254    <para>Variables to be used in this fashion may be defined through
1255    <varname>Environment=</varname> and
1256    <varname>EnvironmentFile=</varname>. In addition, variables listed
1257    in the section "Environment variables in spawned processes" in
1258    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1259    which are considered "static configuration", may be used (this
1260    includes e.g. <varname>$USER</varname>, but not
1261    <varname>$TERM</varname>).</para>
1262
1263    <para>Note that shell command lines are not directly supported. If
1264    shell command lines are to be used, they need to be passed
1265    explicitly to a shell implementation of some kind. Example:</para>
1266    <programlisting>ExecStart=sh -c 'dmesg | tac'</programlisting>
1267
1268    <para>Example:</para>
1269
1270    <programlisting>ExecStart=echo one ; echo "two two"</programlisting>
1271
1272    <para>This will execute <command>echo</command> two times,
1273    each time with one argument: <literal>one</literal> and
1274    <literal>two two</literal>, respectively. Because two commands are
1275    specified, <varname>Type=oneshot</varname> must be used.</para>
1276
1277    <para>Example:</para>
1278
1279    <programlisting>ExecStart=echo / &gt;/dev/null &amp; \; \
1280ls</programlisting>
1281
1282    <para>This will execute <command>echo</command>
1283    with five arguments: <literal>/</literal>,
1284    <literal>&gt;/dev/null</literal>,
1285    <literal>&amp;</literal>, <literal>;</literal>, and
1286    <literal>ls</literal>.</para>
1287  </refsect1>
1288
1289  <refsect1>
1290    <title>Examples</title>
1291
1292    <example>
1293      <title>Simple service</title>
1294
1295      <para>The following unit file creates a service that will
1296      execute <filename index="false">/usr/sbin/foo-daemon</filename>. Since no
1297      <varname>Type=</varname> is specified, the default
1298      <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option> will be assumed.
1299      systemd will assume the unit to be started immediately after the
1300      program has begun executing.</para>
1301
1302      <programlisting>[Unit]
1303Description=Foo
1304
1305[Service]
1306ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-daemon
1307
1308[Install]
1309WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1310
1311      <para>Note that systemd assumes here that the process started by
1312      systemd will continue running until the service terminates. If
1313      the program daemonizes itself (i.e. forks), please use
1314      <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option> instead.</para>
1315
1316      <para>Since no <varname>ExecStop=</varname> was specified,
1317      systemd will send SIGTERM to all processes started from this
1318      service, and after a timeout also SIGKILL. This behavior can be
1319      modified, see
1320      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1321      for details.</para>
1322
1323      <para>Note that this unit type does not include any type of
1324      notification when a service has completed initialization. For
1325      this, you should use other unit types, such as
1326      <varname>Type=</varname><option>notify</option> if the service
1327      understands systemd's notification protocol,
1328      <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option> if the service
1329      can background itself or
1330      <varname>Type=</varname><option>dbus</option> if the unit
1331      acquires a DBus name once initialization is complete. See
1332      below.</para>
1333    </example>
1334
1335    <example>
1336      <title>Oneshot service</title>
1337
1338      <para>Sometimes, units should just execute an action without
1339      keeping active processes, such as a filesystem check or a
1340      cleanup action on boot. For this,
1341      <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option> exists. Units
1342      of this type will wait until the process specified terminates
1343      and then fall back to being inactive. The following unit will
1344      perform a cleanup action:</para>
1345
1346      <programlisting>[Unit]
1347Description=Cleanup old Foo data
1348
1349[Service]
1350Type=oneshot
1351ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-cleanup
1352
1353[Install]
1354WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1355
1356      <para>Note that systemd will consider the unit to be in the
1357      state "starting" until the program has terminated, so ordered
1358      dependencies will wait for the program to finish before starting
1359      themselves. The unit will revert to the "inactive" state after
1360      the execution is done, never reaching the "active" state. That
1361      means another request to start the unit will perform the action
1362      again.</para>
1363
1364      <para><varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option> are the
1365      only service units that may have more than one
1366      <varname>ExecStart=</varname> specified. For units with multiple
1367      commands (<varname index="false">Type=oneshot</varname>), all commands will be run again.</para>
1368      <para> For <varname index="false">Type=oneshot</varname>, <varname>Restart=</varname><option>always</option>
1369      and <varname>Restart=</varname><option>on-success</option> are <emphasis>not</emphasis> allowed.</para>
1370    </example>
1371
1372    <example>
1373      <title>Stoppable oneshot service</title>
1374
1375      <para>Similarly to the oneshot services, there are sometimes
1376      units that need to execute a program to set up something and
1377      then execute another to shut it down, but no process remains
1378      active while they are considered "started". Network
1379      configuration can sometimes fall into this category. Another use
1380      case is if a oneshot service shall not be executed each time
1381      when they are pulled in as a dependency, but only the first
1382      time.</para>
1383
1384      <para>For this, systemd knows the setting
1385      <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname><option>yes</option>, which
1386      causes systemd to consider the unit to be active if the start
1387      action exited successfully. This directive can be used with all
1388      types, but is most useful with
1389      <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option> and
1390      <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>. With
1391      <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>, systemd waits
1392      until the start action has completed before it considers the
1393      unit to be active, so dependencies start only after the start
1394      action has succeeded. With
1395      <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>, dependencies
1396      will start immediately after the start action has been
1397      dispatched. The following unit provides an example for a simple
1398      static firewall.</para>
1399
1400      <programlisting>[Unit]
1401Description=Simple firewall
1402
1403[Service]
1404Type=oneshot
1405RemainAfterExit=yes
1406ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/simple-firewall-start
1407ExecStop=/usr/local/sbin/simple-firewall-stop
1408
1409[Install]
1410WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1411
1412      <para>Since the unit is considered to be running after the start
1413      action has exited, invoking <command>systemctl start</command>
1414      on that unit again will cause no action to be taken.</para>
1415    </example>
1416
1417    <example>
1418      <title>Traditional forking services</title>
1419
1420      <para>Many traditional daemons/services background (i.e. fork,
1421      daemonize) themselves when starting. Set
1422      <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option> in the
1423      service's unit file to support this mode of operation. systemd
1424      will consider the service to be in the process of initialization
1425      while the original program is still running. Once it exits
1426      successfully and at least a process remains (and
1427      <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname><option>no</option>), the
1428      service is considered started.</para>
1429
1430      <para>Often, a traditional daemon only consists of one process.
1431      Therefore, if only one process is left after the original
1432      process terminates, systemd will consider that process the main
1433      process of the service. In that case, the
1434      <varname>$MAINPID</varname> variable will be available in
1435      <varname>ExecReload=</varname>, <varname>ExecStop=</varname>,
1436      etc.</para>
1437
1438      <para>In case more than one process remains, systemd will be
1439      unable to determine the main process, so it will not assume
1440      there is one. In that case, <varname>$MAINPID</varname> will not
1441      expand to anything. However, if the process decides to write a
1442      traditional PID file, systemd will be able to read the main PID
1443      from there. Please set <varname>PIDFile=</varname> accordingly.
1444      Note that the daemon should write that file before finishing
1445      with its initialization. Otherwise, systemd might try to read the
1446      file before it exists.</para>
1447
1448      <para>The following example shows a simple daemon that forks and
1449      just starts one process in the background:</para>
1450
1451      <programlisting>[Unit]
1452Description=Some simple daemon
1453
1454[Service]
1455Type=forking
1456ExecStart=/usr/sbin/my-simple-daemon -d
1457
1458[Install]
1459WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1460
1461      <para>Please see
1462      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1463      for details on how you can influence the way systemd terminates
1464      the service.</para>
1465    </example>
1466
1467    <example>
1468      <title>DBus services</title>
1469
1470      <para>For services that acquire a name on the DBus system bus,
1471      use <varname>Type=</varname><option>dbus</option> and set
1472      <varname>BusName=</varname> accordingly. The service should not
1473      fork (daemonize). systemd will consider the service to be
1474      initialized once the name has been acquired on the system bus.
1475      The following example shows a typical DBus service:</para>
1476
1477      <programlisting>[Unit]
1478Description=Simple DBus service
1479
1480[Service]
1481Type=dbus
1482BusName=org.example.simple-dbus-service
1483ExecStart=/usr/sbin/simple-dbus-service
1484
1485[Install]
1486WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1487
1488      <para>For <emphasis>bus-activatable</emphasis> services, do not
1489      include a [Install] section in the systemd
1490      service file, but use the <varname>SystemdService=</varname>
1491      option in the corresponding DBus service file, for example
1492      (<filename>/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.example.simple-dbus-service.service</filename>):</para>
1493
1494      <programlisting>[D-BUS Service]
1495Name=org.example.simple-dbus-service
1496Exec=/usr/sbin/simple-dbus-service
1497User=root
1498SystemdService=simple-dbus-service.service</programlisting>
1499
1500      <para>Please see
1501      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1502      for details on how you can influence the way systemd terminates
1503      the service.</para>
1504    </example>
1505
1506    <example>
1507      <title>Services that notify systemd about their initialization</title>
1508
1509      <para><varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option> services
1510      are really easy to write, but have the major disadvantage of
1511      systemd not being able to tell when initialization of the given
1512      service is complete. For this reason, systemd supports a simple
1513      notification protocol that allows daemons to make systemd aware
1514      that they are done initializing. Use
1515      <varname>Type=</varname><option>notify</option> for this. A
1516      typical service file for such a daemon would look like
1517      this:</para>
1518
1519      <programlisting>[Unit]
1520Description=Simple notifying service
1521
1522[Service]
1523Type=notify
1524ExecStart=/usr/sbin/simple-notifying-service
1525
1526[Install]
1527WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
1528
1529      <para>Note that the daemon has to support systemd's notification
1530      protocol, else systemd will think the service has not started yet
1531      and kill it after a timeout. For an example of how to update
1532      daemons to support this protocol transparently, take a look at
1533      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
1534      systemd will consider the unit to be in the 'starting' state
1535      until a readiness notification has arrived.</para>
1536
1537      <para>Please see
1538      <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1539      for details on how you can influence the way systemd terminates
1540      the service.</para>
1541    </example>
1542  </refsect1>
1543
1544  <refsect1>
1545      <title>See Also</title>
1546      <para>
1547        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1548        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemctl</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1549        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-system.conf</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1550        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1551        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.exec</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1552        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.resource-control</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1553        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1554        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.directives</refentrytitle><manvolnum>7</manvolnum></citerefentry>,
1555        <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd-run</refentrytitle><manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>
1556      </para>
1557  </refsect1>
1558
1559</refentry>
1560