For the benefit of others currently stuck with the issue - I'm using the following systemd unit as a workaround. Write the unit file to some unique name, e.g. /etc/systemd/system/workaround-named.service, and then "systemctl daemon-reload" and "systemctl enable workaround-named" as usual for real systemd services. For services other than named, simply modify the "After=" line. [Unit] Description=Named Start Workaround Requires=multi-user.target named.service After=named.service Before=multi-user.target [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/bin/true [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target