Systemd with multiple execStart [closed]

Question

i Would know if it's possible to create service with the same script started with different input parameters. Such as:

[Unit]
Description=script description

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/script.py parameters1
ExecStart=/script.py parameters2
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

is it possible? then it will launched to serial-mode? or into two different process? Best regards

Answer 1

if Type=simple in your unit file, you can only specify one ExecStart, but you can add as many ExecStartPre,ExecStartPost`, but none of this is suited for long running commands, because they are executed serially and everything one start is killed before starting the next one.

If Type=oneshot you can specify multiple ExecStart, they run serially not in parallel.

If what you want is to run multiple units in parallel, there a few things you can do:

If they differ on 1 param

You can use template units, so you create a /etc/systemd/system/foo@.service. NOTE: (the @ is important).

[Unit]
Description=script description %I

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/script.py %i
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And then you exec:

$ systemctl start foo@parameter1.service foo@parameter2.service

or...

Target dependencies

You can create multiple units that links to a single target:

#/etc/systemd/system/bar.target
[Unit]
Description=bar target
Requires=multi-user.target
After=multi-user.target
AllowIsolate=yes

And then you just modify you .service units to be WantedBy=bar.target like:

#/etc/systemd/system/foo@.service
[Unit]
Description=script description %I

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/script.py %i
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=bar.target

Then you just enable the foo services you want in parallel, and start the bar target like this:

$ systemctl daemon-reload
$ systemctl enable foo@param1.service
$ systemctl enable foo@param2.service
$ systemctl start bar.target

NOTE: that this works with any type of units not only template units.

Answer 2

You can use ExecStartPre or ExecStartPost for one of scripts

[Unit]
Description=script description

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStartPre=/script.py parameters1
ExecStart=/script.py parameters2
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target