[SOLVED] systemd/cron as user: timer doesn't start after boot

Question

Hello,
I've tried to follow the wiki's systemd/cron functionality article to have a systemd service to run hourly.
Everything seems to be working ok, except that the hourly timer doesn't start automatically : I have to issue a
systemctl --user timer-hourly.timer start
command every time I start the machine to get the timer running.
Can you help me understand what I'm missing to get the (user) timer to start automatically after boot?
Thanks!
My setup consists of the following files:
/home/myuser/.config/systemd/user:
drwxr-xr-x 2 myuser users 4096 Jun 25 17:30 basic.target.wants/
-rw-r--r-- 1 myuser users 217 Jun 25 10:08 db_backup.service
-rw-r--r-- 1 myuser users 232 Jun 25 10:08 test.service
-rw-r--r-- 1 myuser users 61 Jun 19 12:14 timer-hourly.target
drwxr-xr-x 2 myuser users 4096 Jun 25 10:10 timer-hourly.target.wants/
-rw-r--r-- 1 myuser users 134 Jun 19 12:14 timer-hourly.timer
/home/myuser/.config/systemd/user/basic.target.wants/:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser users 50 Jun 25 10:08 timer-hourly.timer -> /home/myuser/.config/systemd/user/timer-hourly.timer
/home/myuser/.config/systemd/user/timer-hourly.target.wants/:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser users 49 Jun 13 15:51 db_backup.service -> /home/myuser/.config/systemd/user/db_backup.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser users 44 Jun 25 10:10 test.service -> /home/myuser/.config/systemd/user/test.service
timer-hourly.timer:
[Unit]
Description=Hourly Timer
[Timer]
OnBootSec=5min
OnCalendar=hourly
Unit=timer-hourly.target
[Install]
WantedBy=basic.target
timer-hourly.target:
[Unit]
Description=Hourly Timer Target
StopWhenUnneeded=yes
test.service:
[Unit]
Description=Run a test (echo) job every hour
Wants=timer-hourly.timer
[Service]
Nice=19
IOSchedulingClass=2
IOSchedulingPriority=7
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python /home/myuser/test_service.py
[Install]
WantedBy=timer-hourly.target
db_backup.service:
[Unit]
Description=Backups databases
Wants=timer-hourly.timer
[Service]
Nice=19
IOSchedulingClass=2
IOSchedulingPriority=7
ExecStart=/home/myuser/source/db_backups/db_backup.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=timer-hourly.target
test_service.py is a simple python script that appends the current time to a file, to check if the service is being run by the timer. (it is after I start the timer after boot, and runs correctly every hour)
db_backup.sh is a script that dumps a database into a text file in a mercurial repository, commits the change and pushes it to backup locations.
Last edited by fede (2014-06-25 21:06:09)

Answer 1

Have you tried this:
systemctl --user enable timer-hourly.timer