[systemd-devel] Query regarding "EnvironmentFile"

[Lennart Poettering]

On Thu, 10.12.15 01:08, Reindl Harald (h.reindl at thelounge.net) wrote:

> 
> 
> Am 09.12.2015 um 20:46 schrieb Lennart Poettering:
> >I probably should never have added EnvironmentFile= in the first
> >place. Packagers misunderstand that unit files are subject to admin
> >configuration and should be treated as such, and that spliting out
> >configuration of unit files into separate EnvironmentFiles= is a
> >really non-sensical game of unnecessary indirection
> 
> i strongly disagree
> 
> it's the easiest way to not touch/copy the systemd-unit *and*
> systemd-snippets for just adjust a simple variable - the point here is
> simple

There are very few things that are easier than "systemctl edit" or
"systemctl edit --full"... Also, you have to do that anyway, if you
want to make any changes about the service itself, such as setting a
memory limit, or adding a dep.

> copy units and/or add own snippets has easily two side effects
> 
> * don't get well deserved updates for the units

Sometimes this is precisely what you want, hence you have the choice
between creating a drop-in ("systemctl edit") or copy/edit the full
file ("systemctl edit --full").

> * or snippets don't play well with later dist-versions of the unit
> 
> a EnvironmentFile supported by the distributions unit is well better for
> simple adoptions

Nope, it's an ugly Redhatism... It defeats a good chunk of our
toolset, include systemctl edit to change things, systemctl cat to see
the current state or systemd-delta to diff the settings. Hence it
really was a bad idea to add in the first place.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat