Hi, On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 08:28:47PM +0000, Chris Green wrote: > So, if I understand correctly, when I do:- > > systemctl --user start helmlcd.service > > Then, although it has been started by 'chris' (I'm logged in as > chris), only one copy of the service can be run.
Only one copy by user chris, yes. It's not a templated service. If you want multiple of them running as user services of chris then you'd have to copy the .service file to a new name, making the copy effectively a completely separate and different service. As it's a user service, it's expected that a DIFFERENT user could also run it. > However, when I do:- > > systemctl --user start [email protected] > > it's quite possible for others to start their own copies of the > service, though presumably they'd have to have a copy of the service > file called [email protected]. As long as there is a [email protected] template file somewhere in systemd's search paths (for user units), then if a user does: myusername$ systemctl --user start fblcd@foo Then they should get their own instance of this service. It may be a requirement of the service that "foo" is actually the username, or it might not be, leaving it to just be an arbitrary instance name. As this is a templated user service there is in principle no reason why a single user can't run multiple instances of it. There might be some service-specific reason why each user can only run one. The "start" command with an instance name should copy the .service file from the template. > How does the second differ from simply having services called > chrisfblcd.service, othernamefblcd.service and so on? There only has to be one template unit file somewhere called [email protected] rather than every user having to copy their own one into place. Also the fact that it's a template indicates that it's expected that multiple copies of it are in some way catered for. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
