[systemd-devel] [HEADSUP] fstab now parsed by generator in systemd git

[Kay Sievers]

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:05 AM, Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri
<barbieri at profusion.mobi> wrote:
> On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 6:47 PM, Kay Sievers <kay at vrfy.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:13 PM, Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri
>> <barbieri at profusion.mobi> wrote:
>>
>>> Lennart, Kay: I hate you damn it! :-D
>>
>> I have nothing against you beside that you talk total nonsense below. :)
>>
>>> Man, how can a fstab file be so complex to justify it? It's simpler
>>> than the service files we already load. Now to simply parse /etc/fstab
>>> we need to call a generator, that parses (was being done already),
>>> generates a new file, that triggers inotify, that calls systemd, that
>>> parses it again. Ouch, that's cumbersome at least, slow at last!
>>
>> Inotify? Calls systemd? Parses again? Dome already? In the above
>> paragraph almost all wrong.
>
> Well, I did not check the code. But when the generator creates the
> unit in /run, it must be notified somehow to systemd, no? Isn't it
> inotify?
>
> Also, the generated unit must be parsed by systemd, that justifies
> "parse again", or did I miss something?

Generators run _before_ units are read.

>>> One suggestion at IRC was to just keep systemd mount units. But if we
>>> should go this route, then we should call to deprecate /etc/fstab.
>>> Last time we discussed about it, people said it was not going to
>>> happen since some tools were parsing and relying on it. Whats is the
>>> way to go?
>>>
>>> The only way I thing this is sane is if we call to deprecate
>>> /etc/fstab. Otherwise it's total bs :-P
>>>
>>> PS: please stop increasing my pid count... you know I hate it!
>>> PS2: ls /usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-* && crie out loud!
>>
>> I ignored the rest of it, it would not have ended good for you if I
>> continued to comment. :)
>
> Hah, you know I'm kidding... but seriously: is there any plan to
> deprecate /etc/fstab in favor of native mount units?

It's not our call, we support it out-of-the-box and will do that for a
long time, I guess. General purpose distros probably don't want to get
rid of it, it works just fine.

Self-contained systems should probably not use fstab from the start
on, and are free to not ship the generator at all.

Kay