this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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Maybe tangential but this reminded me of how much I hate setting up systemd timers/services. I refuse to accept that creating two files in two different directories and searching online for the default timer and service templates is an okay workflow over simply throwing a cron expression next to the command you want to run and being done with it. Is there really no way we can have a crontab-equivalent that virtually converts into a systemd backend when you don't need the extra power? I feel like an old person that can't accept change but it's been a decade and I'm still angry.
This is a configuration declaration abstraction issue. Systemd timers and services are more like primitives.
In NixOS, we have an abstraction that allows simple declaration of a service and timer that runs some script.
As an example, I use this to export my paperless for backup daily in a way that is safe (paperless itself cannot run during that time, guaranteed by systemd) and simple:
https://github.com/Atemu/nixos-config/blob/ca0d39eb98c62424208487f973573478268048b4/modules/paperless/module.nix#L59-L95
(Even without NixOS domain knowledge you should be able to follow what's going on here.)
All that's needed in order to cause a systemd timer to be created for this service is to declare the
startAt = "daily";at the bottom.I love this, I have nixos on my server and it handles all the services this way
I did this for awhile...
https://github.com/systemd-cron/systemd-cron-next
If I remember whatever chef script I was blowing out mucked up something enough I ended up ditching it and manually rebuilding the timers as sysd units.
Even as someone who likes systemd since trying to teach init is pretty uniquely awful, I still have a load of one a year cron jobs I just use a BSD box for.