DevOps4UA

Bridging a System-Level systemd Target to the User Instance

Jenkins

Source: Dev.to | Jan 19, 2026 (UTC)

When working with systemd, it is common to rely on network-online.target to ensure services start only after the network is fully up. However, this target exists at the system level, while many modern workflows run long-lived services in the user systemd instance (for example, user-managed daemons, development tooling, or per-user agents). This setup provides a clean bridge: when the system reaches “network online,” it triggers a corresponding marker target inside a specific user’s systemd instance—automatically and reliably at boot.

Overview of the Approach

The solution consists of three parts:

  1. A small installation script (install.sh) that sets up required system and user units.
  2. A user-level marker unit (network-online.target) that exists only to represent “network online” inside the user instance.
  3. A system-level templated service ([email protected]) that waits for system networking to be online and then starts the user-level target for a given user ID (UID).

Together, these components ensure that user services can depend on network-online.target in the user instance, even though the real network readiness signal originates at the system level.

Enabling User systemd Without an Active Login

A key challenge with user systemd instances is lifecycle: by default, they are tied to interactive logins. If the user is not logged in, the user systemd instance may not exist, which prevents user services from starting at boot.

The installation script addresses this by enabling linger:

  • loginctl enable-linger $USER

With linger enabled, the user’s systemd instance can run even when no session is active. This is a prerequisite for starting user services during the boot process.

Creating a User-Level Network-Online Marker

In the user systemd directory (~/.config/systemd/user), the setup installs a minimal network-online.target unit:

[Unit] Description=User-level Network is Online (marker only) Documentation=man:systemd.special(7)

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This unit is intentionally simple: it does not implement networking logic or checks. Its purpose is to provide a synchronization point so that user services can declare dependencies like:

In other words, it acts as a “ready” flag inside the user instance.

Bridging the System Target to the User Instance

The real bridging happens via the system-level service template [email protected]:

[Unit] Description=Trigger user-level network-online.target for %i After=network-online.target Wants=network-online.target [Service] Type=oneshot User=%i Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/%i ExecStart=/usr/bin/systemctl --user start network-online.target [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

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How It Works

Ensuring It Starts Automatically at Boot

The install script wires everything together:

#!/bin/sh loginctl enable-linger $USER sudo cp -t /etc/systemd/system/ [email protected] sudo systemctl daemon-reload USER_SYSTEMD_PATH="$HOME"/.config/systemd/user mkdir -p "$USER_SYSTEMD_PATH" cp -t "$USER_SYSTEMD_PATH" network-online.target systemctl --user daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable --now user-network-online@$(id -u).service

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Key Steps

Because the unit is installed with WantedBy=multi-user.target, it will run during the normal boot sequence. As soon as the system reaches network-online.target, it triggers the user’s network-online.target, allowing user services to start in an orderly and dependency-driven way.

Practical Outcome

With this bridge in place:

This pattern is lightweight, explicit, and aligns well with systemd’s dependency model—making it a solid foundation for user-managed background services that must wait for reliable network availability.

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