I think this is related to https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6680, specifically this comment:
"hmm, so OnUnitActiveSec= operates relative to a unit becoming active, but Type=oneshot service units actually never become active, unless you combine them with RemainAfterExit=, hence the confusion... Type=oneshot units after all do stuff during their start-up and when that's complete they go down again, they never stay up continiously... Hence, combining Type=oneshot with OnUnitActiveSec= can't really work... This is a big underdocumented though" Which seems relevant, since: $ cat /lib/systemd/system/motd-news.service [Unit] Description=Message of the Day After=network-online.target Documentation=man:update-motd(8) [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to base-files in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1829968 Title: motd [on at least some instances] does not auto-update daily Status in base-files package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: I have a VM running on AWS. It was launched on May 9th: $ uptime 05:26:21 up 12 days, 6:34, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 $ date Wed May 22 05:26:24 UTC 2019 I touched none of the system defaults, and yet the motd has not updated automatically. $ ls -l /var/cache/motd-news -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 May 9 22:53 /var/cache/motd-news The systemd timer unit looks like this: $ systemctl status motd-news.timer ● motd-news.timer - Message of the Day Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/motd-news.timer; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Active: active (elapsed) since Thu 2019-05-09 22:51:58 UTC; 1 weeks 5 days ago Trigger: n/a May 09 22:51:58 ip-172-31-23-224 systemd[1]: Started Message of the Day. If I run /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news --force manually, the file does update correctly. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base-files/+bug/1829968/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
