[systemd-devel] Creating .service files for sets of similar services

[Terry Burton]

On 26 February 2016 at 14:14, Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 3:06 PM, Terry Burton <tez at terryburton.co.uk> wrote:
>> I have an application that in part consists of a number of instances
>> of similar processes (each with their own configuration and bound to
>> neighbouring ports, etc.)
>>
>> I could create a .service file for each instance from a template but
>> I'm wondering whether systemd has some built-in way of handling this
>> situation. Maybe something akin to generators but for services based
>> on a template and with fewer early-boot requirements?
>>
>> Previously I had a single init script (init.d.fake/app-N) to which I
>> pointed a symlink for each instance (e.g. init.d/app-5) and the init
>> script would extract the instance number from $0. So only a single
>> file to maintain. Systemd seems just a little more awkward.
>
> https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html – search
> for "instance". You're looking for %i and the `app at .service` syntax.

Exactly what I need. Thanks.