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Manual: deb-systemd-helper

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DEB-SYSTEMD-HELPER(1p)				     init-system-helpers			      DEB-SYSTEMD-HELPER(1p)

NAME
       deb-systemd-helper - subset of systemctl for machines not running systemd

SYNOPSIS
       deb-systemd-helper enable | disable | purge | mask | unmask | is-enabled | was-enabled | debian-installed | update-
       state | reenable unit file ...

DESCRIPTION
       deb-systemd-helper is a Debian-specific helper script which re-implements the enable, disable, is-enabled and
       reenable commands from systemctl.

       The "enable" action will only be performed once (when first installing the package). On the first "enable", a state
       file is created which will be deleted upon "purge".

       The "mask" action will keep state on whether the service was enabled/disabled before and will properly return to that
       state on "unmask".

       The "was-enabled" action is not present in systemctl, but is required in Debian so that we can figure out whether a
       service was enabled before we installed an updated service file. See http://bugs.debian.org/717603 for details.

       The "debian-installed" action is also not present in systemctl. It returns 0 if the state file of at least one of the
       given units is present.

       The "update-state" action is also not present in systemctl. It updates deb-systemd-helper's state file, removing
       obsolete entries (e.g. service files that are no longer shipped by the package) and adding new entries (e.g.  new
       service files shipped by the package) without enabling them.

       deb-systemd-helper is intended to be used from maintscripts to enable systemd unit files. It is specifically NOT
       intended to be used interactively by users. Instead, users should run systemd and use systemctl, or not bother about
       the systemd enabled state in case they are not running systemd.

ENVIRONMENT
       _DEB_SYSTEMD_HELPER_DEBUG
	   If  you  export _DEB_SYSTEMD_HELPER_DEBUG=1, deb-systemd-helper will print debug messages to stderr (thus visible
	   in dpkg runs). Please include these when filing a bugreport.

       DPKG_ROOT
	   Instead of working on the filesystem root /, perform all operations on a chroot system in the directory given  by
	   DPKG_ROOT.

AUTHOR
       Michael Stapelberg 

1.69							 2025-08-15				      DEB-SYSTEMD-HELPER(1p)
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