Honk! My First Systemd Timer

  • 29 Dec 2023
  • One-minute read

Along with the update of Honk to version 1.2, I add a systemd timer to keep its database lean.

I add two files in /etc/systemd/system:

  • honk-daily-cleanup.timer
  • honk-daily-cleanup.service

honk-daily-cleanup.timer looks like this:

[Unit]
Description="Timer for the daily honk database cleanup"

[Timer]
Unit=honk-database-cleanup-timer.service
OnBootSec=30min
OnUnitActiveSec=1day

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

And honk-daily-cleanup.service is:

[Unit]
Description="Honk database cleanup" 

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin/honk
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/honk/honk -datadir /var/lib/honk cleanup
User=honk
Group=honk

I then add the timer like this:

enable honk-daily-cleanup.timer

And this will run the service daily.

systemctl status honk-daily-cleanup.timer

will show something like:

● honk-daily-cleanup.timer - "Timer for the daily honk database cleanup"
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/honk-daily-cleanup.timer; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (waiting) since Wed 2023-12-27 11:12:08 CET; 1 day 22h ago
    Trigger: Fri 2023-12-29 11:12:11 CET; 1h 58min left
   Triggers: ● honk-daily-cleanup.service

systemd[1]: Started honk-daily-cleanup.timer - "Timer for the daily honk database cleanup".

And

systemctl status honk-daily-cleanup.service

will show something like:

○ honk-daily-cleanup.service - "Honk database cleanup"
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/honk-daily-cleanup.service; static)
     Active: inactive (dead) since Thu 2023-12-28 11:12:38 CET; 22h ago
   Duration: 27.498s
TriggeredBy: ● honk-daily-cleanup.timer
    Process: 2989903 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/honk/honk -datadir /var/lib/honk cleanup (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 2989903 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 1.038s

Dec 28 11:12:11 systemd[1]: Started honk-daily-cleanup.service - "Honk database cleanup".
Dec 28 11:12:38 systemd[1]: honk-daily-cleanup.service: Deactivated successfully.
Dec 28 11:12:38 systemd[1]: honk-daily-cleanup.service: Consumed 1.038s CPU time.
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