new post: systemctl-edit-delay-service-startup

content/posts/systemctl-edit-delay-service-startup/index.md

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+---
+title: "Using `systemctl edit` to Delay Service Startup"
+date: 2023-10-15
+# lastmod: 2023-10-15
+description: "Quick notes on using `systemctl edit` to override a systemd service to delay its startup."
+featured: false
+toc: false
+comment: true
+series: Tips # Projects, Scripts
+tags:
+  - crostini
+  - linux
+  - tailscale
+---
+Following a recent update, I found that the [Linux development environment](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/docs/+/HEAD/containers_and_vms.md) on my Framework Chromebook would fail to load if the [Tailscale](/secure-networking-made-simple-with-tailscale) daemon was already running. It seems that the Tailscale virtual interface may have interfered with how the CrOS Terminal app was expecting to connect to the Linux container. I initially worked around the problem by just disabling the `tailscaled` service, but having to remember to start it up manually was a pretty heavy cognitive load.
+
+Fortunately, it turns out that overriding the service to insert a short startup delay is really easy. I'll just use the `systemctl edit` command to create a quick override configuration:
+```shell
+sudo systemctl edit tailscaled
+```
+
+This shows me the existing contents of the `tailscaled.service` definition so I can easily insert some overrides above. In this case, I just want to use `sleep 5` as the `ExecStartPre` command so that the service start will be delayed by 5 seconds:
+![systemctl edit](systemctl-edit.png)
+
+Upon saving the file, it gets installed to `/etc/systemd/system/tailscaled.service.d/override.conf`. Now the Tailscale interface won't automatically come up until a few seconds later, and that's enough to let my Terminal app start up reliably once more.
+
+Easy peasy.