[systemd-devel] Q: Difference between AssertPathExists and ConditionPathExists?

[Andrei Borzenkov]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 12:32 PM Ulrich Windl
<Ulrich.Windl at rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> When reading the manual page systemd.unit(5), I'm not quite sure what the difference between AssertPathExists and ConditionPathExists is:
>
> (Condition)
> If the specified absolute path name does not exist, the condition will fail.
>
> Vs.
>
> (Assert)
> However, unlike the conditions settings, any assertion setting that is not met results
> in failure of the start job it was triggered by.
> ----
> What does that mean effectively?
>

Assert makes the start job fail, which triggers any followup failure
processing (like failure of other units Requiring this one). Condition
silently skips starting of this unit but proceeds normally with
starting dependent units.