"systemctl --user" doesn't work

[andreadna]

Component(s)

No response

Describe the issue you're reporting

Trying to install and configure systectl --user (without root permission) on Linux server, even if we have followed the instruction on Otel documentation, it doesn't work.
Here the otel.service file:

  [Unit]
  Description=OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib
  After=network.target
  
  [Service]
  EnvironmentFile=/opt/SP/home/otel/config/otel-dc.conf
  ExecStart=/opt/SP/home/otel/otelcol-contrib $OTELCOL_OPTIONS
  KillMode=mixed
  Restart=on-failure
  Type=simple
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target

Starting the process via systemctl: "systemctl --user start otel", we receive a generic error without any information:
● otel.service - OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib
Loaded: loaded (/opt/SP/home/.config/systemd/user/otel.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2025-03-06 11:15:02 UTC; 16min ago
Process: 293494 ExecStart=/opt/SP/home/otel/otelcol-contrib $OTELCOL_OPTIONS (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 293494 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Mar 06 11:15:01 systemd[1678]: otel.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: otel.service: Service RestartSec=100ms expired, scheduling restart.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: otel.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: Stopped OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: otel.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: otel.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 06 11:15:02 systemd[1678]: Failed to start OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib.

[atoulme]

Please give us more information to reproduce. A good way to debug this type of issue is to try and run the process outside systemd. Also check journalctl for logs.

[andreadna]

Please give us more information to reproduce. A good way to debug this type of issue is to try and run the process outside systemd. Also check journalctl for logs.

outside systemd it works fine.
from the journal i get the same lines i wrote above

[atoulme]

That's still not enough to debug, sorry. Please provide a reproducible case.

[andreadna]

We resolved, even if we put in bash_profile some variables, the process started via systemd doesn't load the environment variables.
we set these variables inside service file and it works