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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | AUTOMATIC DEPENDENCIES | OPTIONS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
SYSTEMD.PATH(5) systemd.path SYSTEMD.PATH(5)
systemd.path - Path unit configuration
path.path
A unit configuration file whose name ends in ".path" encodes
information about a path monitored by systemd, for path-based
activation.
This man page lists the configuration options specific to this unit
type. See systemd.unit(5) for the common options of all unit
configuration files. The common configuration items are configured in
the generic [Unit] and [Install] sections. The path specific
configuration options are configured in the [Path] section.
For each path file, a matching unit file must exist, describing the
unit to activate when the path changes. By default, a service by the
same name as the path (except for the suffix) is activated. Example:
a path file foo.path activates a matching service foo.service. The
unit to activate may be controlled by Unit= (see below).
Internally, path units use the inotify(7) API to monitor file
systems. Due to that, it suffers by the same limitations as inotify,
and for example cannot be used to monitor files or directories
changed by other machines on remote NFS file systems.
If a path unit is beneath another mount unit in the file system
hierarchy, both a requirement and an ordering dependency between both
units are created automatically.
An implicit Before= dependency is added between a path unit and the
unit it is supposed to activate.
Unless DefaultDependencies=false in the "[Unit]" section is used,
path units will implicitly have dependencies of type Before= on
paths.target, dependencies of type After= and Requires= on
sysinit.target, and have dependencies of type Conflicts= and Before=
on shutdown.target. These ensure that path units are terminated
cleanly prior to system shutdown. Only path units involved with early
boot or late system shutdown should disable this option.
Path files must include a [Path] section, which carries information
about the path(s) it monitors. The options specific to the [Path]
section of path units are the following:
PathExists=, PathExistsGlob=, PathChanged=, PathModified=,
DirectoryNotEmpty=
Defines paths to monitor for certain changes: PathExists= may be
used to watch the mere existence of a file or directory. If the
file specified exists, the configured unit is activated.
PathExistsGlob= works similar, but checks for the existence of at
least one file matching the globbing pattern specified.
PathChanged= may be used to watch a file or directory and
activate the configured unit whenever it changes. It is not
activated on every write to the watched file but it is activated
if the file which was open for writing gets closed.
PathModified= is similar, but additionally it is activated also
on simple writes to the watched file. DirectoryNotEmpty= may be
used to watch a directory and activate the configured unit
whenever it contains at least one file.
The arguments of these directives must be absolute file system
paths.
Multiple directives may be combined, of the same and of different
types, to watch multiple paths. If the empty string is assigned
to any of these options, the list of paths to watch is reset, and
any prior assignments of these options will not have any effect.
If a path already exists (in case of PathExists= and
PathExistsGlob=) or a directory already is not empty (in case of
DirectoryNotEmpty=) at the time the path unit is activated, then
the configured unit is immediately activated as well. Something
similar does not apply to PathChanged= and PathModified=.
If the path itself or any of the containing directories are not
accessible, systemd will watch for permission changes and notice
that conditions are satisfied when permissions allow that.
Unit=
The unit to activate when any of the configured paths changes.
The argument is a unit name, whose suffix is not ".path". If not
specified, this value defaults to a service that has the same
name as the path unit, except for the suffix. (See above.) It is
recommended that the unit name that is activated and the unit
name of the path unit are named identical, except for the suffix.
MakeDirectory=
Takes a boolean argument. If true, the directories to watch are
created before watching. This option is ignored for PathExists=
settings. Defaults to false.
DirectoryMode=
If MakeDirectory= is enabled, use the mode specified here to
create the directories in question. Takes an access mode in octal
notation. Defaults to 0755.
systemd(1), systemctl(1), systemd.unit(5), systemd.service(5),
inotify(7), systemd.directives(7)
This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service manager)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd⟩. If you have a bug
report for this manual page, see
⟨http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/#bugreports⟩. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2017-07-05. If you dis‐
cover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or
you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail
to man-pages@man7.org
systemd 234 SYSTEMD.PATH(5)
Pages that refer to this page: systemd(1), systemd.unit(5), daemon(7), systemd.directives(7), systemd.index(7), systemd.special(7)