[systemd-devel] ~/.local/share/systemd/user

[Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek]

On Sat, Jun 07, 2014 at 04:03:33PM +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> On Sat, 2014-06-07 at 07:42 -0500, William Giokas wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 07, 2014 at 01:07:08PM +0300, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > Currently, systemd symlinks ~/.local/share/systemd/user to
> > > ~/.config/systemd/user. I'd prefer to not have that symlink. I'd want the
> > > two locations have different semantics, analogous to the separation between
> > > /usr/lib/systemd/user and /etc/systemd/user, i.e. service upstreams should
> > > install units to ~/.local/share/systemd/user and users should customize in
> > > ~/.config/systemd/user.
> > 
> > For me this is a directory, not a symlink.
> 
> By "this", do you mean ~/.local/share/systemd/user? I don't know how
> that got created. The current systemd code creates the symlink, unless
> ~/.local/share/systemd/user already exists (so on your machine the
> symlink won't be created, unless you remove the directory first).
> 
> > > I suppose there are very few service upstreams that install their software
> > > to the user home directory, but I happen to be writing such software myself.
> > > My project is just a toy, though, but I think the general approach of
> > > installing a user service to the user home directory makes sense, as it
> > > avoids the need to have root access.
> > > 
> > > So, would a patch that removes the symlinking be accepted?
> > 
> > So for user services there are 3 directories that packages can be,
> > checked in order:
> > 
> >   ~/.config/systemd/user
> >   /etc/systemd/user/
> >   /usr/lib/systemd/user
> > 
> > I don't see a reason to have a fourth one 'for packages' in a users home
> > directory.
Both directories are "supported", i.e. you can drop a unit using
either path, and it will be used by systemd. A symlink is used to
avoid having two directories. Your usecase hasn't been brought up
before, so there was little reason to have two.

> The same reasons apply that apply for the /etc and /usr/lib separation:
> it makes sense to keep upstream units separate from local stuff.
> 
> If you think that it doesn't make sense to support the rare kind of
> services that are meant to be installed in the home directory, then ok,
> I can live with that. But then I wonder why systemd bothers looking at
> all at ~/.local/share/systemd/user as it currently does.
So far nobody raised this subject, but systemd --user is still relatively
unused, so maybe that's why.

Lennart, do you have any master plan here?

Zbyszek