systemd target with services, services ignoring EnvironmentFile directive

Question

I have the following systemd .target:

[Unit]
Description=My Target
After=network-online.target
Wants=one-service@%i.service
Wants=two-service@%i.service
BindsTo=one-service@%i.service
BindsTo=two-service@%i.service

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Also=one-service@%i.service
Also=two-service@%i.service

And the (one, though both are the same, just different ExecStart= values) .service:

[Unit]
Description=one service
PartOf=my@%i.target
ReloadPropagatedFrom=my@%i.target

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/path/to/my-first-command -${SOME_VAR_DEFINED_IN_ENV_FILE}
PIDFile=/path/to/pidfile
SuccessExitStatus=0
TimeoutStartSec=180s
TimeoutStopSec=180s
RemainAfterExit=true

[Install]
WantedBy=my.target

I then enable the target with systemctl enable [email protected]

I then execute systemctl edit [email protected]; with the following:

[Service]
User=oneusername
Group=onegroup
EnvironmentFile=/home/%u/etc/%i.environment

I then execute systemd daemon-reload, followed by systemctl start [email protected], which fails because the variables in the EnvironmentFile aren't loaded.

However, when I enable and start the target, the variables I've placed in the environment file do not appear to be read, as the service fails because it can't find the variable substitution. I know I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what.

Tried to enable systemd target with service, service has variables that should be read by EnvironmentFile, but the EnvironmentFile isn't being read.

EDIT: corrected typo, originally there was Service] when it should have been [Service]

Answer 1

The problem here is not with your EnvironmentFile, but that using variables in the path of the executable for Exec* is simply not supported. There's an open RFE, but I think it unlikely it would be implemented. You could work around that by using /bin/sh -c '...' to make the shell do the expansion instead.