106

Note: I wrote an article on Medium that explains how to create a service, and how to avoid this particular issue: Creating a Linux service with systemd.

Original question:

I'm using systemd to keep a worker script working at all times:

[Unit]
Description=My worker
After=mysqld.service

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
ExecStart=/path/to/script

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Although the restart works fine if the script exits normally after a few minutes, I've noticed that if it repeatedly fails to execute on startup, systemd will just give up trying to start it:

Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Unit entered failed state.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: Failed to start My worker.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Unit entered failed state.
Jun 14 11:10:31 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Failed with result 'start-limit'.

Similarly, if my worker script fails several times with an exit status of 255, systemd gives up trying to restart it:

Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.  
Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.  
Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Start request repeated too quickly.  
Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: Failed to start My worker.  
Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Unit entered failed state.  
Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Failed with result 'start-limit'.

Is there a way to force systemd to always retry after a few seconds?

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
102

I would like to extend Rahul's answer a bit.

systemd tries to restart multiple times (StartLimitBurst) and stops trying if the attempt count is reached within StartLimitIntervalSec. Both options belong to the [unit] section.

The default delay between executions is 100ms (RestartSec) which causes the rate limit to be reached very fast.

systemd won't attempt any more automatic restarts ever for units with Restart policy defined:

Note that units which are configured for Restart= and which reach the start limit are not attempted to be restarted anymore; however, they may still be restarted manually at a later point, from which point on, the restart logic is again activated.

Rahul's answer helps, because the longer delay prevents reaching the error counter within the StartLimitIntervalSec time. The correct answer is to set both RestartSec and StartLimitBurst to reasonable values though.

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3
  • 12
    Now that I (finally) understand how it works, after some trial-and-error, I can see that your answer is the most correct. Bottom line for me: set StartLimitIntervalSec=0 and voilà.
    – BenMorel
    Aug 26, 2017 at 15:42
  • You don't actually need StartLimitBurst. You can leave it out. You only need what @BenMorel said and StartLimitIntervalSec to limit CPU load when it retries to start your script.
    – Binar Web
    Mar 9, 2021 at 15:02
  • Unknown lvalue 'StartLimitIntervalSec' in section 'Unit'
    – geoidesic
    Jul 19 at 14:44
69

Yes, there is. You can specify to retry after x seconds under [Service] section, 

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
ExecStart=/path/to/script

After saving the file you need to reload the daemon configurations to ensure systemd is aware of the new file,

systemctl daemon-reload

then restart the service to enable changes,

systemctl restart test

As you have requested, Looking at the documentation, 

Restart=on-failure

sounds like a decent recommendation.

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9
  • It seems to work indeed, thank you! So to understand this better, without a RestartSec directive, systemd attempts severals restarts very quickly, then enters a permanent failure state; something that cannot happen when RestartSec is specified?
    – BenMorel
    Jun 14, 2016 at 9:48
  • Also, I've noticed that it delays the "normal" restart of my worker (I'm purposefully exiting the worker gracefully after a few minutes); is there a way to only delay a failed restart?
    – BenMorel
    Jun 14, 2016 at 9:50
  • @Benjamin see my updates
    – Rahul
    Jun 14, 2016 at 9:53
  • @Benjamin you can check here for more parameters.
    – Rahul
    Jun 14, 2016 at 9:57
  • 5
    Judging by the doc, always is a superset of on-failure, so it won't help!
    – BenMorel
    Jun 14, 2016 at 10:10
9

systemd gives up trying to restart it

No. systemd gives up trying to restart it for a little while. This is clearly shown in the log that you supply:

Jun 14 11:25:51 localhost systemd[1]: test.service: Failed with result 'start-limit'.

This is rate limiting kicking in.

The length of the little while is specified in the service unit, using the StartLimitIntervalSec= setting. The number of starts that are needed within that interval to trigger the rate limiting mechanism are specified via the StartLimitBurst= setting. If nothing on your system differs from vanilla systemd, including the defaults for these two settings, then it is 5 times within 10 seconds.

StartLimitIntervalSec=0 disables rate limiting, so systemd will retry forever rather than giving up. But making your service either not exit so often, or idle enough between exits and restarts that it does not exceed the rate limiting threshold, is a better approach.

Note that rate limiting does not care how your service exited. It triggers on the number of attempts to start/restart it, irrespective of their cause.

Further reading

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3
  • 9
    It does seem to give up permanently, though: "Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Wed 2016-06-15 01:21:24 CEST; 12h ago". It stays in this state and the script is never executed again. I tried setting manually StartLimitIntervalSec=10 and StartLimitIntervalSec=5, no luck.
    – BenMorel
    Jun 15, 2016 at 11:55
  • 10
    It does give up permanently by default. See github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2416.
    – Adam Goode
    Apr 22, 2017 at 17:10
  • 6
    Bottom line: to stop prevent it from giving up permanently, set StartLimitIntervalSec=0.
    – BenMorel
    Aug 26, 2017 at 15:43
2

Add a StartLimitIntervalSec=0 directive to the [Unit] block of the service file.

Also you can add RestartSec=3 to the [Service] section to change the retry delay to 3 seconds.

[Unit]
Description=My worker
After=mysqld.service
StartLimitIntervalSec=0 # Added

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=3 # Added
ExecStart=/path/to/script

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

(source)

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2
  • systemd[1]: Unknown section 'Service'. Ignoring.
    – Time Killer
    Dec 3, 2022 at 22:47
  • Unknown lvalue 'StartLimitIntervalSec' in section 'Unit'
    – geoidesic
    Jul 19 at 14:44
1

If your service is not restarting after reboot please insure you have enabled it in-before:

sudo systemctl enable your.service
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