Systemd with detached screen

Question

I want to start a service with a screen command in detached more. The backgound is, that it shall read a serial interface and with reconnecting to the screen I want to be able to interact in case of errors or so to send commands via the serial interface.

Currently I have

systemd service file

[Unit]
Description=read serial interface

[Service]
User=someUser
Group=someUser
Type=forking
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=3
WorkingDirectory=/home/someUser/dev
ExecStart=/usr/bin/screen -DmS serial-magic /home/someUser/dev/run-serial-magic.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Script under /home/someUser/dev/run-serial-magic.sh

#!/bin/bash

pio device monitor -b 115200 -p /dev/ttyUSB0 | tee test.log

I already tried

• moving the screen inside the script.
• using Type=simple with screen option -d instead of -D

The script is working if I call it manually from the command line. I can return to the screen and detach it again. But when I start the service sudo journalctl -f -u someServoce.service just gives me

Okt 23 18:13:28 someHost systemd[1]: Starting read serial interface...

But screen -list says

No Sockets found in /run/screen/S-someUser.

Answer 1

In this case, working on the idea that you've verified the screen is actually running, I'm making the assumption that "someUser" in your service file is not infact the same someUser in your screen -list error. In this case you should enable multiuser support within your screen.

Since you intend to use this like a service, you should

    echo "multiuser on" >> /home/<service user>/.screenrc
    echo "acladd <user who needs access to screen>" >> /home/<service user>/.screenrc

This will add it as a default setting for the service user's screen. If you only use this user for the service it would be more advisable to create a seperate config file for screen and invoke it using

    /usr/bin/screen -c /path/to/config.conf -DmS serial-magic /home/someUser/dev/run-serial-magic.sh
    

In your service file's "ExecStart="

You will then be able to access the screen using screen -x <service user>/serial-magic

I've verified this in my test server which is RHEL 7.