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-rw-r--r--man/systemd.service.xml40
1 files changed, 25 insertions, 15 deletions
diff --git a/man/systemd.service.xml b/man/systemd.service.xml
index 5c29ecb460..03c7b01b3b 100644
--- a/man/systemd.service.xml
+++ b/man/systemd.service.xml
@@ -306,8 +306,9 @@
<varname>ExecStop=</varname> line set. (Services lacking both <varname>ExecStart=</varname> and
<varname>ExecStop=</varname> are not valid.)</para>
- <para>For each of the specified commands, the first argument must be an absolute path to an
- executable. Optionally, this filename may be prefixed with a number of special characters:</para>
+ <para>For each of the specified commands, the first argument must be either an absolute path to an executable
+ or a simple file name without any slashes. Optionally, this filename may be prefixed with a number of special
+ characters:</para>
<table>
<title>Special executable prefixes</title>
@@ -1009,11 +1010,9 @@
<literal>&amp;</literal>, and <emphasis>other elements of shell
syntax are not supported</emphasis>.</para>
- <para>The command to execute must be an absolute path name. It may
- contain spaces, but control characters are not allowed.</para>
+ <para>The command to execute may contain spaces, but control characters are not allowed.</para>
- <para>The command line accepts <literal>%</literal> specifiers as
- described in
+ <para>The command line accepts <literal>%</literal> specifiers as described in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.unit</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.</para>
<para>Basic environment variable substitution is supported. Use
@@ -1027,10 +1026,21 @@
For this type of expansion, quotes are respected when splitting
into words, and afterwards removed.</para>
+ <para>If the command is not a full (absolute) path, it will be resolved to a full path using a
+ fixed search path determinted at compilation time. Searched directories include
+ <filename>/usr/local/bin/</filename>, <filename>/usr/bin/</filename>, <filename>/bin/</filename>
+ on systems using split <filename>/usr/bin/</filename> and <filename>/bin/</filename>
+ directories, and their <filename>sbin/</filename> counterparts on systems using split
+ <filename>bin/</filename> and <filename>sbin/</filename>. It is thus safe to use just the
+ executable name in case of executables located in any of the "standard" directories, and an
+ absolute path must be used in other cases. Using an absolute path is recommended to avoid
+ ambiguity. Hint: this search path may be queried using
+ <command>systemd-path search-binaries-default</command>.</para>
+
<para>Example:</para>
<programlisting>Environment="ONE=one" 'TWO=two two'
-ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO ${TWO}</programlisting>
+ExecStart=echo $ONE $TWO ${TWO}</programlisting>
<para>This will execute <command>/bin/echo</command> with four
arguments: <literal>one</literal>, <literal>two</literal>,
@@ -1040,7 +1050,7 @@ ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO ${TWO}</programlisting>
<programlisting>Environment=ONE='one' "TWO='two two' too" THREE=
ExecStart=/bin/echo ${ONE} ${TWO} ${THREE}
ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO $THREE</programlisting>
- <para>This results in <filename>echo</filename> being
+ <para>This results in <filename>/bin/echo</filename> being
called twice, the first time with arguments
<literal>'one'</literal>,
<literal>'two two' too</literal>, <literal></literal>,
@@ -1066,27 +1076,27 @@ ExecStart=/bin/echo $ONE $TWO $THREE</programlisting>
<para>Note that shell command lines are not directly supported. If
shell command lines are to be used, they need to be passed
explicitly to a shell implementation of some kind. Example:</para>
- <programlisting>ExecStart=/bin/sh -c 'dmesg | tac'</programlisting>
+ <programlisting>ExecStart=sh -c 'dmesg | tac'</programlisting>
<para>Example:</para>
- <programlisting>ExecStart=/bin/echo one ; /bin/echo "two two"</programlisting>
+ <programlisting>ExecStart=echo one ; echo "two two"</programlisting>
- <para>This will execute <command>/bin/echo</command> two times,
+ <para>This will execute <command>echo</command> two times,
each time with one argument: <literal>one</literal> and
<literal>two two</literal>, respectively. Because two commands are
specified, <varname>Type=oneshot</varname> must be used.</para>
<para>Example:</para>
- <programlisting>ExecStart=/bin/echo / &gt;/dev/null &amp; \; \
-/bin/ls</programlisting>
+ <programlisting>ExecStart=echo / &gt;/dev/null &amp; \; \
+ls</programlisting>
- <para>This will execute <command>/bin/echo</command>
+ <para>This will execute <command>echo</command>
with five arguments: <literal>/</literal>,
<literal>&gt;/dev/null</literal>,
<literal>&amp;</literal>, <literal>;</literal>, and
- <literal>/bin/ls</literal>.</para>
+ <literal>ls</literal>.</para>
<table>
<title>C escapes supported in command lines and environment variables</title>