systemctl-add-wants

Add Wants dependency to a target

$ systemctl add-wants [target] [unit]

$ systemctl add-wants [target] [unit1 unit2 ...]

$ systemctl add-wants [target] [unit] --user

systemctl add-wants TARGET UNIT...

systemctl add-wants appends `Wants=` dependencies to a specified systemd target for one or more units. A `Wants=` relationship establishes a soft dependency: the target will attempt to start the listed units, but will not fail if they cannot be activated.
This command provides a programmatic way to establish unit dependencies without manually editing unit files or creating symlinks in `.wants/` directories. It is commonly used to enable services at specific boot targets.

--system

Operate on system configuration (default)

Operate on user configuration

Make temporary changes until reboot

Apply globally for all user logins

Changes made without --runtime are persistent and survive reboots. Wants dependencies are weaker than Requires; units may fail to start without affecting the target. For critical dependencies where failure should propagate, use add-requires instead.

The add-wants subcommand was added to systemctl in systemd version 217. Systemd was created by Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers at Red Hat and has been the default init system for most major Linux distributions since 2015.

systemctl(1), systemctl-add-requires(1), systemd.unit(5)