Systemd

This tutorial connects Sablier to systemd. You will select the Systemd provider, give Sablier access to the system or user systemd bus, register a unit so Sablier can manage it, and confirm Sablier knows when the unit is ready.

Select the Systemd provider

Set the provider.name property to systemd.

provider:
  name: systemd
  systemd:
    user-instance: false

sablier start --provider.name=systemd

SABLIER_PROVIDER_NAME=systemd

If you manage per-user services, enable the user bus instead:

provider:
  systemd:
    user-instance: true

The equivalent environment variable is SABLIER_PROVIDER_SYSTEMD_USER_INSTANCE=true.

Run Sablier in the same host and systemd scope as the units it manages. A user instance requires access to that user’s D-Bus and unit files; a system instance requires permission to call the system manager.

Register a unit

For Sablier to work, it needs to know which systemd unit to start and stop. Register a unit by adding an X-Sablier section:

[Unit]
Description=whoami

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/whoami

[X-Sablier]
Enable=true
Group=mygroup

Enable=true is required. The provider refuses to start or stop units that have not explicitly opted in, preventing requests from controlling unrelated host services.

Reload systemd after changing the file:

systemctl daemon-reload

Use systemctl --user daemon-reload for a user instance.

Sablier accepts the same settings documented in the labels reference without the sablier. prefix and in systemd-style casing. For example, sablier.ready-after becomes ReadyAfter, and sablier.idle.cpu becomes IdleCPU.

Runnable example

A complete, runnable example (using the systemd user instance, no sudo required) is available in examples/systemd.

Confirm when the unit is ready

Sablier waits for systemd to report the unit as active before marking it ready.