1. Unit Section

[Unit]
Description=Account Variant Backend (.NET)
After=network.target

• Description → Friendly name/short description for the service.

• After=network.target → Ensures the service only starts once networking is up.

  ⚠️ Note: If your app requires a working network connection (e.g., DB or APIs), sometimes you’ll see After=network-online.target with Wants=network-online.target instead, since network.target only means “basic networking is available,” not necessarily connected.

2. Service Section

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/cloud/AccountVariantBackendLive
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /home/cloud/AccountVariantBackendLive/AccountVariantBackendLive.dll
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
KillSignal=SIGINT
SyslogIdentifier=accountvariant-backend
User=cloud
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false

• WorkingDirectory → Sets the folder where the app runs (cd into it before launching).

• ExecStart → The exact command that systemd runs to launch your .NET app.

• Restart=always → Ensures the service restarts after a crash/kill.

• RestartSec=10 → Adds a 10s buffer before restart (avoids rapid crash loops).

• KillSignal=SIGINT → Sends Ctrl+C style signal, so the app shuts down gracefully instead of being killed instantly.

• SyslogIdentifier → Makes logs easy to filter:

  journalctl -u accountvariant-backend
  
  

• User=cloud → Runs app as non-root user cloud → security best practice.

• Environment variables:

  • ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production → Runs app in optimized, secure mode.
  • DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false → Suppresses .NET runtime startup telemetry messages in logs.

3. Install Section

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• multi-user.target → Tells systemd to start the service during normal boot when the OS is fully operational (networking, login, etc).
• This makes the app auto-start on reboot after you enable it.