On the topic of Infinite loops on crashing systemd units, I got to the point where I needed an automatic way to verify that my systems had the correct systemd unit defaults. Let’s assume we have the following configuration:
$ cat /etc/systemd/system.conf
[manager]
DefaultRestartSec=1min
$It proved to not be straightforward because the documentation at the time was wrong. Quoting it:
For the manager itself, systemctl show will show all available properties. Those properties are documented in systemd-system.conf(5).
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemctl.html (2021/11/14)
This meant that in the case of DefaultRestartSec configured above and defined in systemd-system.conf(5), we could get the direct values with the following command:
$ systemctl show -p DefaultRestartSec
$It returns nothing. Unfortunately, things are not as the manual stated. It also returns exit code 0, indicating there was no error. Luckily when using the above command in a test we would use its output to compare to our desired value and the test would fail.
We established the manual is wrong at the time of writing, but we still have the goal of testing that our system conforms to our mission’s defaults. Let’s check if there are systemd properties that are similar or derived from DefaultRestartSec:
$ systemctl show | grep DefaultRestart
DefaultRestartUSec=60sec
$Notice the equivalent property! The only difference is that the property’s suffix is USec and not Sec. Also, notice that the suffixed scale on the name of the property or option may be inconsistent with the scale that is set or displayed. While not intellectually friendly, the reason for the different scales in the names has to do with historical and code reasons.
Properties are internally represented as dbus properties and this sets limits on the data types available as well as on backward compatibility. Properties are part of a public API so updating their names or synching their names to the systemd-system.conf options names is not really possible. I tried to inspect systemctl-show.c for a way to match properties to options but that would need hard coding of such mapping making it a maintenance issue.
Options on the other hand have user-facing characteristics so the scale suffix is naturally human-friendly. With that said, given that a system architect can set options in a variety of scales that are automatically converted to internal representations, it is baffling to me why at least time-related configuration options do not match.
With all that said, I submitted an accepted clarification to systemctl‘s manual which summarizes what an architect needs to know when trying to map between systemd‘s configuration options and properties:
systemctl show will show all available properties, most of which are derived or closely match the options described in systemd-system.conf
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/10b1c3cd24f5f95e6e72caebdd6896e2eaf8b853/man/systemctl.xml#L1664
Taking the example of the configuration options mentioned in this post, DefaultRestartSec, DefaultStartLimitIntervalSec and DefaultStartLimitBurst:
| DefaultRestartSec | DefaultRestartUSec |
| DefaultStartLimitIntervalSec | DefaultStartLimitIntervalUSec |
| DefaultStartLimitBurst | DefaultStartLimitBurst |
Software engineering technical musings 