If I have a unit file for a service that lives off the unit file search path, I can link it, and then enable it using the service name instead of the full path of the unit file: $ cat foo.service [Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/bin/sleep 100000000 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target $ sudo systemctl link ~/foo.service Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/foo.service â?? /export/home/delphix/foo.service. $ sudo systemctl enable foo Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/foo.service â?? /export/home/delphix/foo.service. If I add a drop-in file for the service though, enabling the service using the service name does not behave the same way: $ cat /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d/env.conf [Service] Environment=FOO=bar $ sudo systemctl enable foo The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy, RequiredBy, Also, Alias settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance for template units). This means they are not meant to be enabled using systemctl. Possible reasons for having this kind of units are: 1) A unit may be statically enabled by being symlinked from another unit's .wants/ or .requires/ directory. 2) A unit's purpose may be to act as a helper for some other unit which has a requirement dependency on it. 3) A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer, D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...). 4) In case of template units, the unit is meant to be enabled with some instance name specified. I get the warning above, and the expected link in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/ is not created. I can work around this behavior by doing the enable using the path of the unit file: $ sudo systemctl enable ~/foo.service Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/foo.service â?? /export/home/delphix/foo.service. The [Install] section of the unit file being ignored or respected based on the presence or absence of a drop-in file seems inconsistent to me, but I am fairly new to systemd, so I may be missing something. Is this behavior expected? Thanks, John