fleetctl start != systemctl start

[bcwaldon]

The fleetctl start command sets the desired state of a unit to "launched" (that's a fleet state, not a systemd state) and waits for the unit to be scheduled and the target machine to publish systemd state. fleetctl does not look at the contents of this systemd state.

The systemctl start command acts more like an RPC command, sending a StartUnit message over dbus and waiting for the created systemd job to finish.

We have a clear usability problem here. Users expect fleetctl start to be equivalent to systemctl start (#1019). This inconsistency is also preventing us from moving forward on adding a fleetctl restart command, which should reasonably act like systemctl restart (#961).

Assuming others agree that this inconsistency is a problem, I see only one real path forward. fleetctl start needs to watch for the unit to actually start successfuly in systemd.

[Xe]

👍

[jzelinskie]

...or rename the command fleetctl launch and fleetctl relaunch ;)

[Xe]

As a temporary workaround you can do this:

function fleet_start {
    fleetctl load $*

    for unit in $*
    do
        fleetctl ssh $unit sudo systemctl start $unit
    done
}

This will not work with global units.

EDIT: shell script hates dashes, changed fleet-start-unit-wait to fleet_start

[chrisfarms]

👍

[anpieber]

I'm also a big 👍 on this one to finally get the inconsistency solved. Anything we can provide to help with this one?

[xied75]

👍