systemd: convert path to systemd unit name format

Question

How do I convert arbitrary paths to systemd unit file name format?

For example, how would I convert a path like /media/backup to media-backup so I could stop the automounter via:

systemctl stop media-backup.automount

The solution should escape special characters.

Is there any list of those arbitrary paths or do you want to convert every path in the system? What have you tried to do ? — mrc02_kr, Sep 05 '17 at 16:28

Stephen Kitt · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-05T19:33:15.470

26

You should use systemd-escape which is designed explicitly for this:

systemd-escape -p --suffix=automount /media/backup

-p specifies that you’re escaping a path, and handles /, . and .. appropriately. Special characters are handled correctly too. Thus your command would become

systemctl stop "$(systemd-escape -p --suffix=automount /media/backup)"

The escaping rules are described in the systemd.unit manpage.

edited Sep 05 '17 at 19:33

answered Sep 05 '17 at 16:38

Stephen Kitt

434,908

This should work perfectly. Given umount -l is dangerous, I'm surprised to see that systemd lazy unmounts the mountpoint with this command. – Tom Hale Sep 06 '17 at 03:34

systemd: convert path to systemd unit name format

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