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systemd units

gtcnsl installs and wires two systemd units. Day-to-day you can drive them with plain systemctl — here is what each one is and which gtcnsl command owns it.

Updated for v1.3.0

The two units

Unit User Runs Work dir
gitea.service git /usr/local/bin/gitea web --config /etc/gitea/app.ini /var/lib/gitea
gitea-runner.service gitea-runner /usr/local/bin/gitea-runner daemon (gains --config <WorkDir>/config.yaml once that file exists) /var/lib/gitea-runner

Both unit files are written to /etc/systemd/system/ and picked up with a daemon-reload. gtcnsl enables each unit for boot only once its service is up and healthy (see below) — not at write time. They restart on failure and ship with hardening (NoNewPrivileges, PrivateTmp, ProtectSystem=strict, raised file/proc limits).

i
The runner's --config flag is added, never removed
gitea-runner daemon reads no config file at all unless told to with --config. runner register/reconfigure generate a baseline /var/lib/gitea-runner/config.yaml the first time (never overwriting one that's already there), and gitea-runner.service's ExecStart picks up --config only once that file is confirmed present — so re-running runner install on an older install adds the flag as soon as config.yaml exists, and never points at a file that isn't there yet.

Which gtcnsl command owns each

  • gtcnsl gitea install — deploys, enables, and starts gitea.service.
  • gtcnsl runner install — deploys gitea-runner.service but leaves it stopped and not yet enabled.
  • gtcnsl runner register / runner reconfigure — generate config.yaml if it's missing, then start and enable gitea-runner.service (after its health check passes).
  • gtcnsl runner config generate [--force] — (re)writes config.yaml on demand, independent of register/reconfigure.
  • gtcnsl config apply / set / toggle and gtcnsl secrets rotate — restart gitea.service as part of their apply cycle.

Operate them with systemctl

sudo systemctl status gitea
sudo systemctl restart gitea
sudo systemctl status gitea-runner

# follow logs
sudo journalctl -u gitea -f
sudo journalctl -u gitea-runner -f
i
Check both at once
gtcnsl doctor reports whether each unit is active (and warns, rather than fails, when one is down) alongside the rest of the host checks.
!
Don't hand-edit app.ini under a running service
Editing /etc/gitea/app.ini directly skips the backup, diff, and rollback. Use gtcnsl config so a bad change can't strand gitea.service.

Next steps

To move Gitea or gtcnsl itself to a new version, see Upgrades & self-update.