How can I use spaces in systemd command line arguments?

Question

I have a systemd unit with spaces in an argument

ExecStart=command --argument=\"text text\"

It seems that systemd does not recognize the do

Answer 1

I think recent versions of systemd have started accepting quotes in the middle of arguments, closer to what bash accepts. However, @Tgr's answer is still correct, and it's worth elaborating on. Quoting the entire argument, including the flag name, works here. If you do this:

ExecStart=command "--argument=text text"

Then systemd will understand --argument=text text as a single positional argument. You don't have to worry about any more splitting happening on that space. You can see the same behavior in bash:

$ echo "--silly-flag=spaces     are    preserved here"
--silly-flag=spaces     are    preserved here

Answer 2

Environment is a way to do it.

You can also use \s as space, so ExecStart will be:

ExecStart=command --argument="text=\stext"

ref: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.service.html#Command%20lines

Answer 3

Try escaping the space, like so:

ExecStart=command --argument="text\ text"

(The quotes may or may not be necessary.)

Answer 4

Systemd service file supports this

Environment="TEST=one word"
Environment="TEST2=second word"

ExecStartPre=-/bin/echo start pre
ExecStartPre=/bin/echo start pre mandatory
ExecStart=/bin/echo started : ${TEST} $TEST2
ExecStartPost=-/bin/echo start post
ExecStartPost=/bin/echo start post mandatory
ExecStop=/bin/echo stop
ExecStopPost=-/bin/echo stop post
ExecStopPost=/bin/echo stop post mandatory
ExecReload=/bin/echo reload

log :

Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30286]: start pre
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30288]: start pre mandatory
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30295]: started : one word second word
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30296]: start post
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30297]: start post mandatory
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30298]: stop
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30299]: stop post
Mar 09 21:39:47 gitlab-runner-1 echo[30300]: stop post mandatory

But you may actually want to set this if the app needs to read the whole string as 2 arguments, each argument between "" (not tested)

ExecStart=command "$ARG1" "$ARG2"

Answer 5

As Nico suggested, you can create an EvironmentFile in which you can specify an argument with spaces.

SPACEYARG="i love spaces"

In your unit file however, you'll need to wrap that argument in curly brackets in order for the spaces to be passed properly.

EnvironmentFile=/etc/.progconf
ExecStart = command ${SPACEYARG}

Answer 6

systemd only seems to recognize quotes which fully wrap arguments; i.e.

ExecStart=command "--argument=text text"

works but

ExecStart=command --argument="text text"

does not. I just ran into this issue and filed #624 about it.