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  • This is a very elegant solution, and definitely what I would do. You can even use user units if you'd prefer to not run as root.
    – onwsk8r
    Commented May 17 at 17:41
  • Looks very elegant indeed, and gives me the additional benefit of being able to start synchronization manually when I need it, without having to worry about collisions with the next scheduled run. Running as a non-root user is pretty much mandatory with Unison, though – it is not intended to run as root.
    – user149408
    Commented May 17 at 18:29
  • @user149408 In that case you could specify User= in the service unit with a username or uid, and it will start the service as that user. Or as @onwsk8r mentioned, you can define both units (service and timer) entirely under a user if you prefer, though how exactly that's configured (and whether it starts on boot vs login) would depend on your distro. Personally I just define all my services as system services and configure them to run as a user if necessary.
    – Bob
    Commented May 18 at 2:30
  • 1
    @user149408 I'm not sure WorkingDirectory can take a ~ alias, you probably need the absolute path. IIRC it's normally recommended that ExecStart uses an absolute path too, though not strictly required.
    – Bob
    Commented May 18 at 15:37
  • 1
    @user149408 I suspect you may have meant simple, since single does not appear to exist. That said, exec is a better default if possible, since it has better error handling. Good catch on the WorkingDirectory
    – Bob
    Commented May 23 at 0:10