[Freeipa-devel] Should mask/unmask be part of disabling/enabling services in systemd?

[Rob Crittenden]

Martin Basti wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> I need to use systemd mask/unmask in ipa service.
> 
> But as Honza wrote:
> "IMO masking/unmasking should be part of disabling/enabling a service in
> systemd. AFAIK in most other init systems when you disable a service, it
> has the same effect as masking the service in systemd - it will never be
> started until it is enabled/unmasked again. "
> 
> So my questions is, should be masking part of disabling service in
> systemd, to be platform independent?
> Or should we add mask/unmask methods to
> ipaplatform.base.services.PlatformService where mask is alias for disable?
> 
> Martin^2
> 

After reading http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/three-levels-of-off I
disagree that disabling in SysV is the same as masking in systemd,
though I guess it depends on the meaning of disable. According to that
page chkconfig off <service> is equivalent to systemctl disable
<service>.service, which is what we do now AFAIR.

Why do you need to mask a service, e.g. render it completely unstartable?

rob