Random Musings

Yes, you can start a service even if is-disabled returns true. Being disabled means the service is not set to start automatically at boot, but it can still be started manually. Here’s how to handle this:

Example Command

You can check if the service is disabled and then start it:

SERVICE_NAME="example-service"

if systemctl is-enabled --quiet $SERVICE_NAME; then
    echo "$SERVICE_NAME is enabled. No action needed."
else
    echo "$SERVICE_NAME is disabled. Starting the service..."
    systemctl start $SERVICE_NAME
fi

Key Points:

1. systemctl is-enabled:

• Returns disabled if the service is not set to start automatically at boot.

1. systemctl start:

• Starts the service immediately regardless of its enabled/disabled status.

One-Liner Command

To directly check and start the service if it’s disabled:

! systemctl is-enabled --quiet example-service && systemctl start example-service

Explanation:

• ! systemctl is-enabled: Checks if the service is not enabled (disabled).
• && systemctl start: Starts the service if the first condition is true.

Notes:

• A service being disabled does not mean it cannot be started. It simply means it won’t start automatically on system boot.
• After starting the service, if you want it to start automatically on future boots, you can enable it using:

  systemctl enable example-service