[arch-general] How will Arch handle systemd 245 and homed?

[Eli Schwartz]

On 5/7/20 10:54 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:
> All,
> 
>   I just read the article about the major change coming to systemd 245 at:
> 
> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/linux-home-directory-management-is-about-to-undergo-major-change/?ftag=TRE475558a&bhid=12825460&mid=12819432&cid=712355268

This article is full of inaccuracies, and manages to be embarrassingly
wrong about the release date, too. It was published April 29, but refers
to systemd as "still being RC2 status" while linking to the RC2 from
March 3, while the final release was 3 days later on March 6. 2 months
later the article is published.

Perhaps the author wrote the article months ago and didn't publish it on
time, nor update it to match the real world?

> What is terrifying is the SSH Problem. 9/10 hosts I interact with I do via
> ssh. And do we really need LUKS encrypted volumes for every user's $HOME
> directory? Sure for enterprise setups, etc.. but will there be a way to simply
> keep a normal unencrypted /home. How would scripts be able to backup certain
> work locations from user directories if the user is logged out?

You don't need it, systemd-homed is a solution to a problem that doesn't
exist (I like many things about systemd, this isn't one of them).

Fortunately, it doesn't matter because it is fully optional. It's no
different from providing home directories and user accounts via NFS and
LDAP/Active Directory. And those didn't cause the standard type of user
accounts to stop working, now did they?

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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