diff --git a/man/systemd.unit.xml b/man/systemd.unit.xml
index e820b33087..9704d6f227 100644
--- a/man/systemd.unit.xml
+++ b/man/systemd.unit.xml
@@ -1573,6 +1573,171 @@
running in mode.
+
+ Examples
+
+
+ Allowing units to be enabled
+
+ The following snippet (highlighted)
+ allows a unit (e.g.
+ foo.service) to be
+ enabled via
+ systemctl enable:
+
+ [Unit]
+Description=Foo
+
+[Service]
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/foo-daemon
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
+
+ After running
+ systemctl enable, a symlink
+ /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/foo.service
+ linking to the actual unit will be created. It
+ tells systemd to pull in the unit when starting
+ multi-user.target. The
+ inverse systemctl disable
+ will remove that symlink again.
+
+
+
+ Overriding vendor settings
+
+ There are two methods of overriding
+ vendor settings in unit files: copying the unit
+ file from
+ /usr/lib/systemd/system
+ to /etc/systemd/system and
+ modifying the chosen settings. Alternatively,
+ one can create a directory named
+ unit.d/
+ within
+ /etc/systemd/system and
+ place a drop-in file
+ name.conf
+ there that only changes the specific settings
+ one is interested in. Note that multiple such
+ drop-in files are read if present.
+
+ The advantage of the first method is
+ that one easily overrides the complete unit,
+ the vendor unit is not parsed at all anymore.
+ It has the disadvantage that improvements to
+ the unit file by the vendor are not
+ automatically incorporated on updates.
+
+ The advantage of the second method is
+ that one only overrides the settings one
+ specifically wants, where updates to the unit
+ by the vendor automatically apply. This has the
+ disadvantage that some future updates by the
+ vendor might be incompatible with the local
+ changes.
+
+ Note that for drop-in files, if one wants
+ to remove entries from a setting that is parsed
+ as a list (and is not a dependency), such as
+ ConditionPathExists= (or
+ e.g. ExecStart= in service
+ units), one needs to first clear the list
+ before re-adding all entries except the one
+ that is to be removed. See below for an
+ example.
+
+ This also applies for user instances of
+ systemd, but with different locations for the
+ unit files. See the section on unit load paths
+ for further details.
+
+ Suppose there is a vendor-supplied unit
+ /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service
+ with the following contents:
+
+ [Unit]
+Description=Some HTTP server
+After=remote-fs.target sqldb.service
+Requires=sqldb.service
+AssertPathExists=/srv/webserver
+
+[Service]
+Type=notify
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/some-fancy-httpd-server
+Nice=5
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
+
+ Now one wants to change some settings as
+ an administrator: firstly, in the local setup,
+ /srv/webserver might not
+ exit, because the HTTP server is configured to
+ use /srv/www instead.
+ Secondly, the local configuration makes the
+ HTTP server also depend on a memory cache
+ service,
+ memcached.service, that
+ should be pulled in
+ (Requires=) and also be
+ ordered appropriately
+ (After=). Thirdly, in order
+ to harden the service a bit more, the
+ administrator would like to set the
+ PrivateTmp=
+ setting (see
+ systemd.service5
+ for details). And lastly, the administrator
+ would like to reset the niceness of the service
+ to its default value of 0.
+
+ The first possibility is to copy the unit
+ file to
+ /etc/systemd/system/httpd.service
+ and change the chosen settings:
+
+ [Unit]
+Description=Some HTTP server
+After=remote-fs.target sqldb.service memcached.service
+Requires=sqldb.service memcached.service
+AssertPathExists=/srv/www
+
+[Service]
+Type=notify
+ExecStart=/usr/sbin/some-fancy-httpd-server
+Nice=0
+PrivateTmp=yes
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=multi-user.target
+
+ Alternatively, the administrator could
+ create a drop-in file
+ /etc/systemd/system/httpd.service.d/local.conf
+ with the following contents:
+
+ [Unit]
+After=memcached.service
+Requires=memcached.service
+# Reset all assertions and then re-add the condition we want
+AssertPathExists=
+AssertPathExists=/srv/www
+
+[Service]
+Nice=0
+PrivateTmp=yes
+
+ Note that dependencies
+ (After=, etc.) cannot be
+ reset to an empty list, so dependencies can
+ only be added in drop-ins. If you want to
+ remove dependencies, you have to override the
+ entire unit.
+
+
+
See Also