Incompatible distributions

Posted Jul 13, 2017 10:13 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
In reply to: User=0day considered harmful in systemd by drag
Parent article: User=0day considered harmful in systemd

"When you have a unit file that is intended to be used in multiple distributions"

It might have been a goal of systemd to use distribution-agnostic unit file instead of the distribution-specific shell scripts, it seems that this goal is not achievable. What if some distribution runs e.g. web services as www-user, and other as httpd-user? I think the best the software author can do is to provide a unit file template and let the distribution packager update it to the specific distribution. Or forget the whole distribution-thing as it is now and converge on some standard (I guess it would happen only over the dead bodies of the distribution creators...).

Incompatible distributions

Posted Jul 13, 2017 10:40 UTC (Thu) by bof (subscriber, #110741) [Link]

Thanks to the very nice systemd override features a distribution with "nonstandard" User= requirements, can easily install a /usr/lib/systemd/system/someunit.d/distrouser.conf with the distribution specific correct setting.

Incompatible distributions

Posted Jul 14, 2017 11:08 UTC (Fri) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] (1 responses)

Why would one distro run web services as www-user and another as httpd-user? Only because back then, there was no standard or guide. But if software contains a service file with a user name suggestion right from the start, it's hard to see why distros would ignore that recommendation and forever ship with a patch. Choosing a name is work for distros that they will happily leave up to upstream. So yes, systemd's goal of standardizing mundane parts across distros is achievable and is quite successful in practice.

Incompatible distributions

Posted Sep 28, 2017 12:41 UTC (Thu) by mstone_ (subscriber, #66309) [Link]

It's pretty hard to change existing installs, and the benefits just aren't worth the effort. It might sound nice to use the same username everywhere, but in practice it isn't that hard to figure out.