systemd.preset
systemd
Developer
Lennart
Poettering
lennart@poettering.net
systemd.preset
5
systemd.preset
Service enablement presets
/etc/systemd/system-preset/*.preset
/run/systemd/system-preset/*.preset
/usr/lib/systemd/system-preset/*.preset
/etc/systemd/user-preset/*.preset
/run/systemd/user-preset/*.preset
/usr/lib/systemd/user-preset/*.preset
Description
Preset files may be used to encode policy which
services shall be enabled by default and which ones
shall be disabled. They are read by systemctl
preset (for more information see
systemctl1)
which uses this information to enable or disable a
unit according to preset policy. systemctl
preset is used by the post install
scriptlets of RPM packages (or other OS package formats),
to enable/disable specific units by default on package
installation, enforcing distribution, spin or
administrator preset policy. This allows choosing a certain
set of units to be enabled/disabled even before
installing the actual package.
It is not recommended to ship preset files
within the respective software packages implementing
the services, but rather centralize them in a
distribution or spin default policy, which can be
amended by administrator policy.
If no preset files exist, systemctl
preset will enable all units that are
installed by default. If this is not desired and all
units shall rather be disabled it is necessary to ship
a preset file with a single, catchall
"disable *" line. (See example 1,
below.)
Preset File Format
The preset files contain a list of
directives consisting of either the word
enable or
disable followed by a space and a
unit name (possibly with shell style wildcards),
separated by newlines. Empty lines and lines whose
first non-whitespace character is # or ; are
ignored.
Two different directives are understood:
enable may be used to enable units
by default, disable to disable
units by default.
If multiple lines apply to a unit name the
first matching one takes precedence over all
others.
Each preset file shall be named in the style of
<priority>-<program>.conf.
Files in /etc/ override files
with the same name in /usr/lib/
and /run/. Files in
/run/ override files with the
same name in /usr/lib/. Packages
should install their preset files in
/usr/lib/. Files in
/etc/ are reserved for the local
administrator, who may use this logic to override the
preset files installed by vendor packages. All preset
files are sorted by their filename in alphabetical
order, regardless in which of the directories they
reside, to guarantee that a specific preset file takes
precedence over another file with an alphabetically
earlier name, if both files contain lines that apply
to the same unit names. It is recommended to prefix
all file names with two-digit number, to simplify
ordering.
If the administrator wants to disable a preset
file supplied by the vendor the recommended way is to
place a symlink to /dev/null in
/etc/systemd/system-preset/
bearing the same file name.
Example
Default off example /usr/lib/systemd/system-preset/99-default.preset:
disable *
This disables all units. Due to the file name
prefix 99- it will be read last and
hence can easily be overridden by spin or
administrator preset policy or suchlike.
A GNOME spin example /usr/lib/systemd/system-preset/50-gnome.preset:
enable gdm.service
enable colord.service
enable accounts-daemon.service
enable avahi-daemon.*
This enables the three mentioned units, plus all
avahi-daemon regardless of which
unit type. A file like this could be useful for
inclusion in a GNOME spin of a distribution. It will
ensure that the units necessary for GNOME are properly
enabled as they are installed. It leaves all other
units untouched, and subject to other (later) preset
files, for example like the one from the first example
above.
Administrator policy /etc/systemd/system-preset/00-lennart.preset:
enable httpd.service
enable sshd.service
enable postfix.service
disable *
This enables three specific services and
disables all others. This is useful for administrators
to specifically select the units to enable, and
disable all others. Due to the file name prefix
00- it will be read early and hence
overrides all other preset policy files.
See Also
systemd1,
systemctl1,
systemd-delta1