On Wed, Jan 09, 2019 at 10:43:38AM -0500, Steve Clark wrote: > I am trying to understand what After= means in a unit file. Does it > mean after the specified target is up and operational or only that > the target has been started? > > I have something that needs postgres but postgres needs to be > operational not just started. Sometimes it can take a bit for > postgres to become operational. I believe that the postgresql service has Type=notify in it's service definition, which means that it will notify systemd when it is operational. This means that if you have a service that has After=postgresql.service, systemd should wait until after the postgresql service notifies systemd that it is operational before your service will be started. If your service is starting and unable to connect to postgresql, then I would say that's a bug in postgresql -- it shouldn't be notifying systemd that it is operational until it actually is. -- Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>