How can I get colored output of `systemd` commands run with `watch` inside xterm?

Question

Somehow I'm unable to get this working with color output, it works but no colors are shown.

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1. I'm currently using these alias'es in my bash shell:

   alias Xterm='xterm -geometry 132x60 +dc +cm -e '
   alias Watch='watch --color --differences --interval=1 --exec '
   alias xterm-watch='Xterm Watch '
   alias _nc='networkctl'
   alias nc-status='_nc --no-pager --stats --full status'
   alias nc-status-watch='xterm-watch nc-status'
   

2. $TERM is set to xterm-256color
3. When i enter nc-status-watch at the bash prompt, an xterm window pops-up correctly with a watch command running the networkctl command with it's arguments. But the output does not show any colors.

How can I get colored output of systemd commands run with watch inside xterm?

Answer 1

Thanks to the comment from @muru, I finally got colored output.

I needed this change:

alias Xterm='SYSTEMD_COLORS=1 xterm -geometry 132x60 -e '

• 🗒 For Wayland i also needed -rv before the -e option to reverse the fg/bg colors used by xterm.
  This is unrelated to the current topic though...
  Maybe a bug w.r.t. Wayland+xterm at moment? 🤔

Reference: How do I get systemctl to print in color when being interacted with from a non-tty?