</table>
</refsect1>
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Examples</title>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>Simple service</title>
+
+ <para>The following unit file creates a service
+ that will execute
+ <filename>/usr/sbin/foo-daemon</filename>.
+ Since no <varname>Type=</varname> is specified,
+ the default
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>
+ will be assumed. systemd will assume the unit
+ to be started immediately after the program has
+ begun executing.</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Foo
+
+[Service]
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-daemon
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Note that systemd assumes here that the
+ process started by systemd will continue
+ running until the service terminates. If the
+ program daemonizes itself (i.e. forks), please
+ use
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option>
+ instead.</para>
+
+ <para>Since no <varname>ExecStop=</varname> was
+ specified, systemd will send SIGTERM to all
+ processes started from this service, and after
+ a timeout also SIGKILL. This behavior can be
+ modified, see
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ for details.</para>
+
+ <para>Note that this unit type does not include
+ any type of notification when a service has
+ completed initialization. For this, you should
+ use other unit types, such as
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>notify</option>
+ if the service understands systemd's
+ notification protocol,
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option>
+ if the service can background itself or
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>dbus</option>
+ if the unit acquires a DBus name once
+ initialization is complete. See below.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>Oneshot service</title>
+
+ <para>Sometimes units should just execute an
+ action without keeping active processes, such
+ as a filesystem check or a cleanup action on
+ boot. For this,
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>
+ exists. Units of this type will wait until the
+ process specified terminates and then fall back
+ to being inactive. The following unit will
+ perform a clenaup action:</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Cleanup old Foo data
+
+[Service]
+Type=oneshot
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-cleanup
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Note that systemd will consider the unit
+ to be in the state 'starting' until the program
+ has terminated, so ordered dependencies will
+ wait for the program to finish before starting
+ themselves. The unit will revert to the
+ 'inactive' state after the execution is
+ done, never reaching the 'active' state. That
+ means another request to start the unit will
+ perform the action again.</para>
+
+ <para><varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>
+ are the only service units that may have more
+ than one <varname>ExecStart=</varname>
+ specified. They will be executed in order until
+ either they are all successful or one of them
+ fails.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>Stoppable oneshot service</title>
+
+ <para>Similarly to the oneshot services, there
+ are sometimes units that need to execute a
+ program to set up something and then execute
+ another to shut it down, but no process remains
+ active while they are considered
+ 'started'. Network configuration can sometimes
+ fall into this category. Another use case is if
+ a oneshot service shall not be executed a
+ each time when they are pulled in as a
+ dependency, but only the first time.</para>
+
+ <para>For this, systemd knows the setting
+ <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname><option>yes</option>,
+ which causes systemd to consider the unit to be
+ active if the start action exited successfully.
+ This directive can be used with all types, but
+ is most useful with
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>
+ and
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>.
+ With
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>oneshot</option>
+ systemd waits until the start action has
+ completed before it considers the unit to be
+ active, so dependencies start only after the
+ start action has succeeded. With
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>
+ dependencies will start immediately after the
+ start action has been dispatched. The following
+ unit provides an example for a simple static
+ firewall.</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Simple firewall
+
+[Service]
+Type=oneshot
+RemainAfterExit=yes
+ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/simple-firewall-start
+ExecStop=/usr/local/sbin/simple-firewall-stop
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Since the unit is considered to be
+ running after the start action has exited,
+ invoking <command>systemctl start</command> on
+ that unit again will cause no action to be
+ taken.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>Traditional forking services</title>
+
+ <para>Many traditional daemons/services
+ background (i.e. fork, daemonize) themselves
+ when starting. Set
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>forking</option>
+ in the service's unit file to support this mode
+ of operation. systemd will consider the service
+ to be in the process of initialization while
+ the original program is still running. Once
+ it exits successfully and at least a process
+ remains (and
+ <varname>RemainAfterExit=</varname><option>no</option>),
+ the service is considered started.</para>
+
+ <para>Often a traditional daemon only consists
+ of one process. Therefore, if only one process
+ is left after the original process terminates,
+ systemd will consider that process the main
+ process of the service. In that case, the
+ <varname>$MAINPID</varname> variable will be
+ available in <varname>ExecReload=</varname>,
+ <varname>ExecStop=</varname>, etc.</para>
+
+ <para>In case more than one process remains,
+ systemd will be unable to determine the main
+ process, so it will not assume there is one.
+ In that case, <varname>$MAINPID</varname> will
+ not expand to anything. However, if the process
+ decides to write a traditional PID file,
+ systemd will be able to read the main PID from
+ there. Please set <varname>PIDFile=</varname>
+ accordingly. Note that the daemon should write
+ that file before finishing with its
+ initialization, otherwise systemd might try to
+ read the file before it exists.</para>
+
+ <para>The following example shows a simple
+ daemon that forks and just starts one process
+ in the background:</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Some simple daemon
+
+[Service]
+Type=forking
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/my-simple-daemon -d
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Please see
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ for details on how you can influence the way
+ systemd terminates the service.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>DBus services</title>
+
+ <para>For services that acquire a name on the
+ DBus system bus, use
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>dbus</option>
+ and set <varname>BusName=</varname>
+ accordingly. The service should not fork
+ (daemonize). systemd will consider the service
+ to be initialized once the name has been
+ acquired on the system bus. The following
+ example shows a typical DBus service:</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Simple DBus service
+
+[Service]
+Type=dbus
+BusName=org.example.simple-dbus-service
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/simple-dbus-service
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>For <emphasis>bus-activatable</emphasis>
+ services, don't include a
+ <literal>[Install]</literal> section in the
+ systemd service file, but use the
+ <varname>SystemdService=</varname> option in
+ the corresponding DBus service file, for
+ example
+ (<filename>/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.example.simple-dbus-service.service</filename>):</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[D-BUS Service]
+Name=org.example.simple-dbus-service
+Exec=/usr/sbin/simple-dbus-service
+User=root
+SystemdService=simple-dbus-service.service</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Please see
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ for details on how you can influence the way
+ systemd terminates the service.</para>
+ </example>
+
+ <example>
+ <title>Services that notify systemd about their initialization</title>
+
+ <para><varname>Type=</varname><option>simple</option>
+ services are really easy to write, but have the
+ major disadvantage of systemd not being able to
+ tell when initialization of the given service
+ is complete. For this reason, systemd supports
+ a simple notification protocol that allows
+ daemons to make systemd aware that they are
+ done initializing. Use
+ <varname>Type=</varname><option>notify</option>
+ for this. A typical service file for such a
+ daemon would look like this:</para>
+
+ <programlisting>[Unit]
+Description=Simple notifying service
+
+[Service]
+Type=notify
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/simple-notifying-service
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target</programlisting>
+
+ <para>Note that the daemon has to support
+ systemd's notification protocol, else systemd
+ will think the service hasn't started yet and
+ kill it after a timeout. For an example of how
+ to update daemons to support this protocol
+ transparently, take a look at
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>sd_notify</refentrytitle><manvolnum>3</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
+ systemd will consider the unit to be in the
+ 'starting' state until a readiness notification
+ has arrived.</para>
+
+ <para>Please see
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.kill</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>
+ for details on how you can influence the way
+ systemd terminates the service.</para>
+ </example>
+ </refsect1>
+
<refsect1>
<title>See Also</title>
<para>
projects / thirdparty / systemd.git / commitdiff
