Linux: concerns over systemd adoption and Debian's decision to switch

Wed Oct 22 20:49:49 UTC 2014

Jeffrey Ollie wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2014 at 3:22 PM, John Schiel <jschiel at flowtools.net> wrote:
>> On 10/22/2014 01:30 PM, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
>>> On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 13:13:29 -0600, John Schiel said:
>>>
>>>> i was beginning to wonder how secure systemd is also.
>>> One of the 3 CIA pillars of security is "availability".  And if
>>> it's oh-dark-30, figuring out what symlink is supposed to be where
>>> for a given failed systemd unit can be a tad challenging.  At least under
>>> sysvinit, either /etc/rc5.d/S50foobar is there or it isn't(*).
>> Agreed, the "oh-dark-thirty" call outs will be harder to resolve but I'm
>> sure some folks will learn to deal with it. It's new and changes the job but
>> as was noted earlier, there is always change.
> I disagree.  I believe that the features of systemd will make
> "oh-dark-thirty" call outs easier to resolve, but only if you take the
> time to familiarize yourself with the tools at hand *before* problems
> happen.

Easier said then done.

1. Experimentation and learning curve take time.  That's a real cost 
that's being imposed.  It's not clear that the benefits outweigh the 
costs of the status quo.

2. Assumes good documentation.  Not a given with systemd, as it stands now.

3. Assumes that problems are easy to track down.  Harder to do with 
murky and monolithic code.  (I still shudder the first time udev did 
something completely counter-intuitive at 0-dark-30, and that's from the 
same cast of characters.

4. More fundamentally, 0-dark-30 events are almost always unexpected 
(other than in the sense of Murphy's Law), and tricky to resolve - one 
has hopefully prepared for the expected.  Hence, it's not completely 
clear that one CAN familiarize oneself in a meaningful way - 
particularly when talking about something as monolithic as systemd.  
That's one of the major reasons for keeping things modular, and keeping 
modules simple.

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra