[ale] semi OT: systemd-homed

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 14:59:44 -0400
Boris Borisov via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> Just opening the rants :)
> 
> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/linux-home-directory-management-is-about-to-undergo-major-change/

Quote from the article:

"Prior to systemd every system and resource was managed by its own
tool, which was clumsy and inefficient. Now? Controlling and managing
systems on Linux is incredibly easy."

The preceding is a bald face lie. Each and every system and resource
was always manageable by any of several process supervisors including
daemontools, runit, s6, and several others. Controlling systems on
Linux has always been incredibly easy. The fact that most distros chose
to use sysvinit, out of inertia, in no way negates the fact that there
were always unified ways to easily manage processes.

This article is a puff-piece advertisement for systemd, and as such,
should be labeled an editorial and should be placed in the editorial
section (assuming TechRepublic has such a section).

And what security minded sysadmin wouldn't want to walk around with his
home directory on a thumb drive? Thumb drives never fall out of pockets
or get confused with other thumb drives, right?

And oh by the way, no more sshing into a box with homed. But don't
worry, Lennart will develop a solution: He always does. After all, the
systemd project has never once labeled a problem as "WONTFIX", right?

LUKSing the home directory isn't for everybody. Admins: Ever have
somebody forget their password? With a plain home directory, no sweat,
just change their password. With LUKS, that data's gone forever, unless
they've made an UNENCRYPTED backup. And I'm pretty sure with this new
setup the root user can't make an unencrypted backup.

Systemd-homed sounds great in the article, but personally, I'll stick
with good old Void Linux with the runit init/process supervisor.

SteveT

Steve Litt
March 2020 featured book: Troubleshooting: Why Bother?
http://www.troubleshooters.com/twb