[systemd-devel] systemd --user fails to start a user service at the first time

[Andrei Borzenkov]

On 29.10.2021 04:54, Han wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a newbie to systemd. I encountered a strange problem when using
> systemd user
> service in Debian 10 (hardware: Raspberry Pi 4), systemd version 241.
> 
> I posted this question on stackoverflow but didn't get answers yet. Hence
> trying to ask here. My apologies if this is too basic.
> 
>    1. I created a new service unit file at here:
>    /home/pi/.config/systemd/user/foo.service
> 
> its content looks like this:
> 
> [Service]
> ExecStart=/home/pi/test/foo
> WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/test
> 
> 
>    1. I tried to start this service, but it failed:
> 
> $ systemctl --user start foo
> Failed to start foo.service: Unit foo.se

Does it work after

systemctl --user daemon-reload

?

rvice not found.
> 
> However, systemd can list this unit file when doing this:
> 
> $systemctl --user list-unit-files --type service | grep foo
> foo.service                      static
> 
> Moreover, when I added [Install] section in the unit file:
> 
> [Install]
> WantedBy=multi-user.target
> 

User instance does not have this target.

> and run $systemctl --user enable foo , it worked.
> 
> Even more, after that I removed the unit file, and recreated the unit file
> without the [Install] section, now I start the service and the original
> problem is no longer seen.
> 
> So it seems like only when I try to create a new user service for the first
> time on the system, without using [Install], it will fail to start.
> 
> Any ideas why this is happening? (btw, I don't want to have [Install] for
> this service.)
> 
> Or is this a known issue fixed in a later release?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Han
>