1 assignment outside of section. ignoring

BuildingTents

Giving the campers something to read while they guard the flag, systemctl: assignment outside of section. ignoring..

I wanted to throw together a quick post for a recent issue I have seen on Redhat 7/CentOS 7 boxes. A recent OS update has brought a small but important change to SystemD. In the past if you wanted to add environment variables to a SystemD service, you could enter # systemctl edit postgresql-14 (note I will be using postgresql-14 as the example service in this post), then add a line such as:

After saving the file, and starting the service you are good to go. Recently after a minor update, I started getting the error “[/etc/systemd/system/postgresql-14.service.d/override.conf:1] Assignment outside of section. Ignoring.”, then the service would not start. It turns out, you can no longer drop Environment lines directly into the SystemD overrides, you need to mark which section of the SystemD file you are overriding. Below is the new proper way to go about this:

Quick fix, but can take a bit of digging. Also for SystemD and Postgres 14, this is the current way to easily redirect the data folder. Hope this helps someone!

Share this:

Leave a comment cancel reply.

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

How do I override or configure systemd services?

Many sysv init scripts used a corresponding file in /etc/default to allow the administrator to configure it. Upstart jobs can be modified using .override files. How do I override or configure systemd units, now that systemd is the default in Ubuntu?

• configuration

• 4 Note that when clearing the ExecStart= with a blank entry you cannot put a comment after it like: ExecStart= # Empty line to clear previous entries. This will be taken as another ExecStart= entry and added to the list. PS. I could not add comment to muru's answer because of my low reputation. –  tysik Aug 23, 2019 at 12:20

systemd units need not obey files in /etc/default . systemd is easily configurable, but requires that you know the syntax of systemd unit files.

Packages ship unit files typically in /lib/systemd/system/ . These are not to be edited. Instead, systemd allows you to override these files by creating appropriate files in /etc/systemd/system/ .

For a given service foo , the package would provide /lib/systemd/system/foo.service . You can check its status using systemctl status foo , or view its logs using journalctl -u foo . To override something in the definition of foo , do:

This creates a directory in /etc/systemd/system named after the unit, and an override.conf file in that directory ( /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d/override.conf ). You can add or override settings using this file (or other .conf files in /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d/ ). This is also applicable to non-service units - you could do systemctl edit foo.mount , systemctl edit foo.timer , etc. It assumes .service as the default type if you didn't specify one.

Overriding command arguments

Take the getty service for example. Say I want to have TTY2 autologin to my user (this is not advisable, but just an example). TTY2 is run by the getty@tty2 service ( tty2 being an instance of the template /lib/systemd/system/ [email protected] ). To do this, I have to modify the getty@tty2 service.

In particular, I have to change the ExecStart line, which currently is:

To override this, do:

I had to explicitly clear ExecStart before setting it again, as it is an additive setting, similar to other lists like Environment (as a whole, not per-variable) and EnvironmentFile ; and unlike overriding settings like RestartSec or Type . If I did not clear it, systemd will execute every ExecStart line, but you can only have multiple ExecStart entries for Type=oneshot services.

• Dependency settings like Before , After , Wants , etc. are also lists, but cannot be cleared using this way. You'll have to override/replace the entire service for that (see below).

I had to use the proper section header. In the original file, ExecStart is in the [Service] section, so my override has to put ExecStart in the [Service] section as well. Often, having a look at the actual service file using systemctl cat will tell you what you need to override and which section it is in.

Usually, if you edit a systemd unit file, for it to take effect, you need to run:

However, systemctl edit automatically does this for you.

And if I do:

and press Ctrl Alt F2 , presto! I'll be logged into my account on that TTY.

As I said before, getty@tty2 is an instance of a template. So, what if I wanted to override all instances of that template? That can be done by editing the template itself (removing the instance identifier - in this case tty2 ):

Overriding the environment

A common use case of /etc/default files is setting environment variables. Usually, /etc/default is a shell script, so you could use shell language constructs in it. With systemd , however, this is not the case. You can specify environment variables in two ways:

Say you have set the environment variables in a file:

Then, you can add to the override:

In particular, if your /etc/default/foo contains only assignments and no shell syntax, you could use it as the EnvironmentFile .

Via Environment entries

The above could also be accomplished using the following override:

However, this can get tricky with multiple variables, spaces, etc. Have a look at one of my other answers for an example of such an instance.

Variations in editing

Replacing the existing unit entirely.

If you want to make massive changes to the existing unit, such that you're effectively replacing it altogether, you could just do:

Temporary edits

In the systemd file hierarchy, /etc takes precedence over /run , which in turn takes precedence over /lib . Everything said so far also applies to using /run/systemd/system instead of /etc/systemd/system . Typically /run is a transient filesystem whose contents are lost on reboot, so if you want to override a unit only until reboot, you can do:

However, you cannot use this method to temporarily override something that is already in /etc (e.g., snap service files are usually created directly in /etc/systemd/system , so you can only override them using files in /etc/system/system/<snap-service-name>.service.d ).

Overriding user units

Everything said so far also applies to user units, with systemctl --user edit , systemctl --user daemon-reload , etc. instead of the corresponding system unit commands. The override files go to ~/.config/systemd/user instead of /etc/systemd/system . If, as an administrator, you want to override user units for all users, then use /etc/systemd/user instead.

Setting specific properties

Many resource-control properties can be set directly using the systemctl set-property command. Example from the manpage:

Changes are applied immediately and also persisted to override files. For example, the following command will immediately update the service's resource configuration:

And also add the following files in the user's home directory (because --user makes it a user unit):

Undoing changes

You can simply remove the corresponding override file, and do systemctl daemon-reload to have systemd read the updated unit definition.

You can also revert all changes (including ones from systemctl set-property ):

Further Reading

Via this mechanism, it becomes very easy to override systemd units, as well as to undo such changes (by simply removing the override file). These are not the only settings which can be modified.

The following links would be useful:

• Arch Wiki entry on systemd
• systemd for Administrators , Part IX: On /etc/sysconfig and /etc/default (by the lead developer of systemd, Lennart Poettering)
• The systemd manpages , in particular, the manpages of systemd.unit and systemd.service
• Ubuntu Wiki entry on Systemd for Upstart users
• 3 You have to clear the variable before setting it for services not of the type oneshot. This solved my problem. –  Colin Apr 2, 2016 at 16:26
• 5 @MarkEdington from the systemd.service(5) manpage, section on ExecStart : "Unless Type= is oneshot, exactly one command must be given. When Type=oneshot is used, zero or more commands may be specified. Commands may be specified by providing multiple command lines in the same directive, or alternatively, this directive may be specified more than once with the same effect. If the empty string is assigned to this option, the list of commands to start is reset, prior assignments of this option will have no effect." –  muru Aug 31, 2017 at 4:53
• 8 @Orient systemctl revert foo –  Ayell Apr 16, 2018 at 5:36
• 3 @xenoterracide depends on if you want to replace the previous value or just add another command to be executed. –  muru Jul 31, 2021 at 5:14
• 3 Excellent answer, except one part - it makes you believe you can reset After , based on the line "I had to explicitly clear ExecStart before setting it again, as it is an additive setting, similar to After..." Although it is a list/additive setting - as I had to found out from elsewhere - you cannot reset dependency type settings... –  Krisztián Szegi Mar 16, 2022 at 6:17

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged configuration services systemd ..

• The Overflow Blog
• An open-source development paradigm
• Developers get by with a little help from AI: Stack Overflow Knows code...
• Featured on Meta
• Testing a new version of Stack Overflow Jobs
• What deliverables would you like to see out of a working group?

Hot Network Questions

• Do they even fit? Yes!
• Can a rental agreement state that no guests or parties are allowed?
• What should I call my graduated PhD advisee?
• C - CHIP8 Interpreter
• I Just ordered a 26 by 1.95 tube. Just found out my Tire is Marked 26 by 2.10 Will the 1.95 fit? the 2.10 tire?
• What is the maximum number of times a liquid rocket engine has detonated/ exploded during development?
• Is there a term for 'Era when the gods walked amongst men'?
• Are RAID controllers blind to partition tables on individual disks?
• Why is Siobhan pronounced with a /v/ sound in English?
• How does the direct realist explain illusions like the Müller-Lyer illusion?
• What is causing my oil pan to fill with a mysterious fluid?
• The Magic Circle spell requires powdered silver and iron worth at least 100 gp to cast it; how much powder is that?
• Orderings in Philosophy
• I am trying to change file permissions for the following .sh file from 777 to 755 , I have tried using chmod which is not working
• Compare two strings, with NaC
• Can't set time to wee hours of January 1, 1970
• Why the numbers of the label of two consecutive `subequations` is even?
• Preserving / fixing class imbalance
• UNSUPPORTED_API_VERSION: Invalid Api version specified on URL on Manifest Retrieval
• Long word using only 4 letters
• How exactly does the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) "see" light from so far away?
• A SF novel about a boy sold at a slave auction in a spaceport
• Harmonic minor 'A'. How is left hand (bass staff) affected?
• Understanding roots of unity in quadratic fields

Navigation Menu

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests..., provide feedback.

We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously.

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly.

To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation .

• Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement . We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Service - Assignment outside of section. Ignoring. #180

dexter74 commented Jul 14, 2023

christgau commented Jul 14, 2023

Sorry, something went wrong.

JedMeister commented Jul 14, 2023

Dexter74 commented jul 18, 2023 • edited, jedmeister commented jul 24, 2023, christgau commented aug 6, 2023.

dexter74 commented Aug 15, 2023

Christgau commented aug 16, 2023.

No branches or pull requests

Can't seem to get systemd timers to run

Tothecloudd0.

I've used cron specifically in my other distros (mostly servers) to take care of automating my backups and since cron isn't supported in Solus I am trying to use systemd timers to do the job (saw a post here that cron wasn't supported)

No matter what I do I keep getting this error

/etc/systemd/system/backup.timer:1: Assignment outside of section. Ignoring. backup.timer: Timer unit lacks value setting. Refusing. Unit backup.timer has a bad unit file setting.

I'm definitely no expert so I just follow guides online. Says timer unit lacks value so I've been changing the entries under [Timer] but no dice. Here are my .sh,service and timer entries

I'm doing something wrong right? thanks guys!

OnCalendar=Sun *-*-* 00:00:00 check using this systemd-analyze calendar Sun *-*-* 00:00:00

this one throws error (Failed to parse calendar specification dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service) seems there is a link

try this OnCalendar=Sun check using this command systemd-analyze calendar Sun it matches your cron so keep monitoring for sync everyweek 🙂

finally check systemctl list-timers --all

tothecloudd0 strange i added multi-user-target and /bin/bash in service then everything works

do check the file permission else do chmod +x backup.*

if you get exec 127 error then u need to provide root permission to script/service

viyoriya I just tried OnCalendar=Sun but it's still throwing the same error

I ran systemd-analyze calendar Sun *-*-* 00:00:00 and mine didn't return an error

I appreciate the tip, do you have any other suggestions?

check the file is UTF-8 encoding

viyoriya files are set to us-ascii

ender Try deleting the commented lines? ( To me assignment outside section would mean an assignment was made outside a section so maybe your section entries got commented out say because of peculiar EOL, also 'cat -e' would show them)

I've also removed them and tested it again but still no go

viyoriya strange i added multi-user-target and /bin/bash in service then everything works

Just tried this and it worked! much appreciated!

kyrios I never got to try your tip as @viyoriya suggestion worked but I appreciate your your thanks!

Thanks everyone for your help 😃

Try deleting the commented lines? ( To me assignment outside section would mean an assignment was made outside a section so maybe your section entries got commented out say because of peculiar EOL, also 'cat -e' would show them)

You have to use WantedBy=default.target for user units instead of WantdBy=multi-user.target And to have it starting at boot, you have to run loginctl enable-linger username (do not forget to replace username) otherwise it will only be started at user login and will be killed when the user logout

Mastodon | Copyright © 2015-2024 Solus Project. The Solus logo is Copyright © 2016-2024 Solus Project.

Systemd-resolved duplicate entries

Hi, I have a problem with systemd-resolved and NetworkManager.

I didn’t set any global DNS settings, and only have one interface with 2 DNS nameserver, but resolvectl says that somehow, I have 2 global and 2 interface related setting (which is the same as global), and, because of that, there are duplicate entries in the systemd-resolved generated. resolv.conf file. (So at the moment I have 4 entries in systemd-resolved generated resolv.conf instead of 2).

The Rancher created RKE cluster uses this generated file, and I get a lot of DnsConfigForming event. So, there are any idea about how to configure NetworkManager or systemd-resolved and make the generated resolv.conf usable again?

Is it possible those entries are getting set from two different sources (i.e. one set on the system and one set via DHCP?).

What nmconnection files exist on your system (in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ )? What are there contents?

What are the logs for NetworkManager and systemd-resolved for the current boot?

Have only one interface with static IP and DNS settings:

Output of $ journalctl -u NetworkManager -u systemd-resolved -b0 :

I tried some settings, that’s why contains somw warnings, but I pasted the current nmconnections configuration.

It looks like your systemd-resolved is complaining and restarting itself alot:

What’s in /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/global-dns.conf ?

If you can reproduce this easily it might be better for you to provide a minimal Butane config that shows the problem. Then I can try to reproduce myself in my local environment.

Also… can you try using 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (the opendns nameservers) instead of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 . This will at least let us know if the two entries are both coming from your static network config or if one of them is coming from somewhere else.

The whole /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/ directory is empty for me. Changed the DNS entries in ens2.nmconnection , restarted NetworkManager , and called resolvectl dns :

After that I searched everywhere the global entries, but I didn’t found them, so I restarted the systemd-resolved , and it’s changed the global entries too:

So, at the moment, I don’t know why the systemd-resolved picks up the interface entries as global entries (and generates the resolv.conf file incorrectly).

That’s weird. The log mentioned specifically /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/global-dns.conf :

I saw that, but it’s full of emptiness.

As I see, Fedora guys will fix the full integration of systemd-resolved in F35 based images, but it will come maybe in september. : https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/834

Hey @mecseid - I’m sorry but I really am not sure what is causing that system to get multiple entries in the resolv.conf. You linked to fully enabling systemd-resolved · Issue #834 · coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker · GitHub but I don’t know if that would really fix your problem, though, yes, there would be just the stub listener entry in resolv.conf like:

Would you want to try out one of our rawhide images (purely for testing) just to see what the behavior is for you there? These images already have the systemd-resolved enablement bits in them since they are on f35 Fedora CoreOS Build Browser

Related Topics

You are not logged in.

• Topics: Active | Unanswered
• »  Networking, Server, and Protection
• »  [Solved]netctl help please.

#1 2020-09-07 20:00:31

[solved]netctl help please..

netctl help please.

After update today, netctl is broken.

I brought the interface up manually to get here.

I've looked at the wiki. I don't see what has changed.

I've never had ifplugd installed.

I did not get any .pacnew files for pam. I've looked at the forum.

What have I missed?

Last edited by teckk (2020-09-08 14:58:38)

#2 2020-09-07 20:44:08

Re: [solved]netctl help please..

I found it.

From the wiki.

Journal warnings for profiles using .include directives Profiles still using systemd's old .include directives...

That's what has changed. And I had not updated for a while.

Board footer

Atom topic feed

Powered by FluxBB