systemd unit

Run the daemon as a long-lived service so it survives plugin reconnects, OS reboots, and lets you pre-deploy across many hosts.

Why bother

Auto-deploy works fine for most setups. systemd is worth it when:

• You run the same vault from many clients (other devices, mobile relay) and want the daemon up 24/7.
• You want central logging via journalctl rather than file-based logs.
• You manage many hosts with config management (Ansible, NixOS) and prefer declarative service definitions.
• You want resource limits enforced (MemoryMax, CPUQuota).

Install

# 1. Drop the binary somewhere persistent
sudo install -m 0755 -o YOUR_USER -g YOUR_USER \
  obsidian-remote-server-linux-amd64 \
  /usr/local/bin/obsidian-remote-server
 
# 2. Verify it's the binary you expect (see Cosign verify)
cosign verify-blob \
  --bundle obsidian-remote-server-linux-amd64.bundle \
  --certificate-identity-regexp 'https://github.com/sotashimozono/obsidian-remote-ssh/.github/workflows/release.yml@.*' \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com \
  /usr/local/bin/obsidian-remote-server

Unit file

~/.config/systemd/user/obsidian-remote-server.service:

[Unit]
Description=obsidian-remote-ssh daemon
After=network.target
 
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/obsidian-remote-server \
  --vault-root=%h/notes \
  --socket=%h/.obsidian-remote/server.sock \
  --token-file=%h/.obsidian-remote/token \
  --verbose
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
MemoryMax=512M
CPUQuota=50%
 
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Replace %h/notes with your vault path.

Enable

mkdir -p ~/.obsidian-remote && chmod 700 ~/.obsidian-remote
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now obsidian-remote-server
systemctl --user status obsidian-remote-server

To survive logout (no console session):

sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

Plugin profile setup

In the plugin profile, set:

Field	Value
Daemon socket path	.obsidian-remote/server.sock (home-relative)
Daemon token path	.obsidian-remote/token (home-relative)

The remote daemon binary path is currently fixed at ~/.obsidian-remote/server in the plugin (no UI override yet). The plugin’s reuse-existing-daemon probe (see auto-deploy step 2) will attach to your systemd-managed daemon when it’s healthy and skip the binary upload entirely. The deploy fallback only kicks in if the socket / token / handshake fails — typically when your binary version doesn’t match the one the current plugin bundle expects.

Logs

journalctl --user -u obsidian-remote-server -f

Replaces ~/.obsidian-remote/server.log for the systemd-managed instance.

Next: Raspberry Pi notes.