[systemd-devel] "systemd-path systemd-search-user-unit" does not match reality

[Mantas Mikulėnas]

On Thu, Jul 25, 2024 at 10:42 AM Vladimir Panteleev <
git at vladimir.panteleev.md> wrote:

> It looks like "systemd-path systemd-search-user-unit" isn't accurate
> or does not correspond to the list of paths that systemd is looking
> in.
>

The paths for user units and other user configuration depend on your
XDG_{CONFIG,DATA}_{DIRS,HOME} environment variables.

Since systemd-search-user-unit is running as part of your interactive
session (and under your interactive shell) whereas systemd --user itself *is
not*, they will likely have different lists of environment variables,
especially if you have Nix set up a custom XDG_* through /etc/profile or
similar.

While systemd --user has a few ways to push environment variables into the
services it starts, those all happen after initialization; there's no good
equivalent for providing envvars for systemd itself. You would need to
`sudo systemctl edit user@$UID` and add some [Service] Environment=
definitions there.

(In the early days I used to edit the user at .service to invoke
`ExecStart=/bin/sh -l -c "exec systemd --user"` so that it would go through
the shell's ~/.profile processing, but I'm not sure if that works these
days.)

-- 
Mantas Mikulėnas
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