Although nobody reacted; it seems trivial that this SHOULD work. And since it doesn't (as you already guessed) this is bug.
Therefore I went ahead took the time to write a bug report: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/37329 On Thu, 1 May 2025 00:14:04 +0200 Carlo Wood <ca...@alinoe.com> wrote: > If I have a template unit foo@.service > and I have a symlink in /etc/systemd/system/ > foo-bar@.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/foo@.service > > 1) is adding a symbolic link like this supported? > 2) is using %j inside foo@.service supported in this case > (aka, allowed and it should work)? > > If then I start this alias with > sudo systemctl start foo-bar@instance.service > > 3) what should %j expand to? (assuming 'yes' to 2) above).
