Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

amlamarra · 2016-11-15 12:31:22

Just wondering if there's an application out there that helps make dealing with Systemd timers a bit easier. Either GUI or CLI.

Trilby · 2016-11-15 12:34:57

Vim works well for me. What do you mean "dealing with systemd timers"? What do you need to do with them?

amlamarra · 2016-11-15 12:44:32

Just a quick & easy way of creating, deleting, & managing them (without having to know all the syntax for the files themselves).

Like this but for systemd timers.

If there's not, that's cool. I'm trying to come up with another project to work on.

Last edited by amlamarra (2016-11-15 12:45:22)

Trilby · 2016-11-15 12:48:26

If you want something to work on, go for it. But why would knowing a very simple text file syntax be harder than figuring out menu options and buttons to click on in a gui? All the same options would be there, they'd just be in less-well-documented places.

amlamarra · 2016-11-15 12:57:16

Because there's a LOT of these "very simple text file syntax" to learn in Linux and I figured somebody would have made something like this. You couldn't see the use of having a centralized way to manage timers? I mean, sure, you can open each file to see what it does & when it does it. But that can be hassle if you have a lot. Obviously somebody thought it would be a good idea to implement such a thing for cron jobs.

Trilby · 2016-11-15 13:06:17

No, I really don't see the use in this, but that's just my taste. Don't let that stop you. And while you are right there are a lot of very simple text file syntaxes, there are even more not-so-simple complex gui tools for people to learn. Replacing a simple thing to learn with a harder thing to learn is not productive. Now listing all the timers and what each of them run in one place could be useful - but I've never had a cause to do so.

I really don't mean to dissuade you. If you see a need for a cool new tool, by all means make one. I was asking at the start of the thread as it really wasn't clear to me what you were looking for.

amlamarra · 2016-11-15 13:18:18

No problem. I just need something to work on. Don't even care if nobody uses. But I didn't want to work on something that 30 other people already created. I'd start with a CLI tool. If I did create a GUI for it, it would just be to learn how to do so.

Trilby · 2016-11-15 13:26:33

You may be interested in Xyne's `sermon`. It seems to have similar goals for systemd unit files in general. I've hardly used it, so I'm not sure how it does with timers. But I'm pretty sure it is just for listing the units and their statuses (so the side-by-side comparison of timers and their commands may be there) but I don't think it is meant as a unit file editor.

eschwartz · 2016-11-15 14:09:17

amlamarra wrote:

Because there's a LOT of these "very simple text file syntax" to learn in Linux and I figured somebody would have made something like this. You couldn't see the use of having a centralized way to manage timers? I mean, sure, you can open each file to see what it does & when it does it. But that can be hassle if you have a lot. Obviously somebody thought it would be a good idea to implement such a thing for cron jobs.

No, gnome-schedule is no more centralized than cron itself.

cron comes with a builtin CLI manager, called "crontab". It already lists everything in one place, and the only thing the GUI does is, well, wrap that in a windowed interface. Plus replace the documented cron keywords with undocumented but still mostly intuitive "human-readable" language.

Granted, systemd uses more than one file and therefore there could be some benefit to listing them all together, as Trilby said. But bringing Gnome Schedule as a proof to the likelihood of such a request is kind of funny.

monodromy · 2016-11-15 17:18:17

I assume you know about "systemctl list-timers"? Of course you can't manage with this. "systemctl edit" can, well, edit, though I've never actually used it.

amlamarra · 2016-11-15 17:29:49

Eschwartz wrote:

cron comes with a builtin CLI manager, called "crontab".

Ok, is there anything similar to that for Systemd timers? I'm asking because I'm still relatively new to Linux and especially Systemd.

monodromy wrote:

I assume you know about "systemctl list-timers"?

I did not. Thanks.

eschwartz · 2016-11-15 17:46:41

`systemctl list-timers` shows you the timer portion only (as with systemd in general), and there is no way to really get a good look at the services they trigger and what they do. And "list-timers" only lists the filename of the services they activate.
`systemctl edit UNITFILE` doesn't show you the contents of the unit file and only offers you the (default blank) override.conf file.

A way to view more things at once might be nice, but then again it might be something that one would wish was baked into systemctl itself.

Last edited by eschwartz (2016-11-15 17:52:53)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-11-15 12:31:22

Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#2 2016-11-15 12:34:57

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#3 2016-11-15 12:44:32

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#4 2016-11-15 12:48:26

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#5 2016-11-15 12:57:16

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#6 2016-11-15 13:06:17

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#7 2016-11-15 13:18:18

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#8 2016-11-15 13:26:33

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#9 2016-11-15 14:09:17

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#10 2016-11-15 17:18:17

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#11 2016-11-15 17:29:49

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

#12 2016-11-15 17:46:41

Re: Application for dealing with Systemd Timers

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