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systemd

what does hyphen before slash in systemctl service file?

I see ExecStop=-/sbin/start-stop-daemon in the nginx.service file, what does -/sbin mean?

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/nginx.pid
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/nginx -t -q -g 'daemon on; master_process on;'
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;'
ExecReload=/usr/sbin/nginx -g 'daemon on; master_process on;' -s reload
ExecStop=-/sbin/start-stop-daemon --quiet --stop --retry QUIT/5 --pidfile /run/nginx.pid
TimeoutStopSec=5
KillMode=mixed
Solution

  • If the executable path is prefixed with "-", an exit code of the command normally considered a failure (i.e. non-zero exit status or abnormal exit due to signal) is recorded, but has no further effect and is considered equivalent to success.

    From Table 1. Special executable prefixes in https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.service.html