<term><command>restart <replaceable>PATTERN</replaceable>…</command></term>
<listitem>
- <para>Stop and then start one or more units specified on the
- command line. If the units are not running yet, they will
- be started.</para>
+ <para>Stop and then start one or more units specified on the command line. If the units are not running
+ yet, they will be started.</para>
+
+ <para>Note that restarting a unit with this command does not necessarily flush out all of the unit's
+ resources before it is started again. For example, the per-service file descriptor storage facility (see
+ <varname>FileDescriptoreStoreMax=</varname> in
+ <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>) will
+ remain intact as long as the unit has a job pending, and is only cleared when the unit is fully stopped and
+ no jobs are pending anymore. If it is intended that the file descriptor store is flushed out, too, during a
+ restart operation an explicit <command>systemctl stop</command> command followed by <command>systemctl
+ start</command> should be issued.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>