I am trying to use the $HOME environment variable in the ExecStart. I tried many different things like $HOME and ${HOME} but nothing seems to be working
ExecStart=${HOME}/bin/some-binary
Anyone knows the correct format for this?
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Baptiste Mille-Mathias
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Keeto
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3This is not allowed in `ExecStart=`. It must be a full path beginning with a `/`. – Michael Hampton Aug 04 '16 at 19:37
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1If you want a service to use things in every user's homes, you want a user service, not a system service. – bviktor Jan 04 '20 at 11:52
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I think this is what you're looking for: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html#Specifiers.
Specifically, %h should expand to the current user's home dir.
Jack O'Connor
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According to the documentation you have provided, `%h` is the `user home directory`. But, in my case, `ExecStart` still requested the full path so I ended up typing it starting from the root. – Can Sürmeli Nov 15 '19 at 09:06
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Using `%h` is probably not what you want. I've posted an alternate answer with details. – pR0Ps Jan 04 '20 at 11:20
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The full list of supported variables (called "Specifiers") is here: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html#Specifiers.
There is no specifier for the home directory of user the service is run as (the one specified by User=). There is only one for the user running the service manager.
From the link:
%his the home directory of the user running the service manager instance. In case of the system manager this resolves to "/root". Note that this setting is not influenced by theUser=setting configurable in the [Service] section of the service unit.
pR0Ps
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4Just to be clear, that means if I have a user unit, then `%h` most definitely is what I want to use because it will give me the equivalent of `$HOME`. – Cliff Apr 22 '20 at 20:05
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