[systemd-devel] Shipping preset files with packages to prefer socket activation

[Andrea Pappacoda]

Hi all, I'd like to ask for feedback regarding shipping a 
systemd.preset(5) file with a particular software package as a way to 
prefer socket activation.

To simplify things, I'm going to take the foot terminal as an example 
(you can find more information about foot's systemd files here: 
<https://codeberg.org/dnkl/foot/pulls/1281>), but this can apply to 
other software like OpenSSH.

Foot supports a server mode which can be socket-activated, and this is 
great. I'd like foot to default to socket activation when installed 
from a distro package, but on distros like Debian every unit which has 
an [Install] section gets enabled by default, meaning that the 
foot-server.service and foot-server.socket units will be both enabled 
and started by default.

To avoid enabling foot-server.service without removing the [Install] 
section, I was thinking about installing a preset file alongside the 
units which only specifies that foot-server.service should be disabled 
by default.

While to me this looks like a simple and kinda clean solution, the 
systemd.preset(5) manual page discourages shipping preset files with 
software packages, as that can override distro policies; while I can 
see how this applies to presets which *enable* units, I find a preset 
file which only *partially disables* a service to be pretty 
unobtrusive, and I don't see why it should be considered bad practice. 
Am I missing anything?

In short: how can a software package which supports both traditional 
and socket activation signal to the system that it prefers to be socket 
activated by default?

Thanks all!

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