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Set systemd service options

Besides its quadlet section, a spec's unit passes [Unit], [Service] and [Install] straight into the generated systemd service. Use them for timeouts, restart behavior and dependencies between containers (see Add dependencies between containers).

Allow slow starts

systemd gives up on a service that hasn't started after 90 seconds by default. By default, podman reports a container as started as soon as its process runs, so most containers finish starting well within that limit. syslet pulls missing images before it stops anything during an apply, so that download doesn't count against the limit either.

A start still takes longer when:

  • The container waits until it's healthy: the start then includes the app's whole warm-up (see Wait until a container is healthy).
  • Podman pulls the image during the start: with [Container] Pull=always or Pull=newer, which check the registry on every start, or when the image is gone at boot, for example after podman image prune.
  • A large volume is mounted with :Z or :z, which relabels every file for SELinux on each start.

For these containers, raise the limit:

Text Only
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sysdef: containers: app: spec: {
    unit: Service: TimeoutStartSec: "900"
}
JSON
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"Service": {
  "TimeoutStartSec": "900"
}

Tune restarts

With desiredState: "running", syslet sets [Service] Restart=always and [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target default.target, overwriting your own values for those two keys. Other restart settings, such as [Service] RestartSec= or [Unit] StartLimitBurst=, pass through.

Apply a change

A change to any of these sections restarts the container, except [Unit] Description, which only rewrites the unit file.

syslet doesn't check option names; podman's generator and systemd-analyze verify reject invalid ones when you preview (see Troubleshoot a failed apply). For every section and option you can set, see Unit options.