[systemd-devel] [ANNOUNCE] systemd 209

[Lennart Poettering]

Hey!

This took a lot longer than we hoped to, due to the dbus transition. But
here it is! systemd 209!

http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/systemd-209.tar.xz

With this new release almost everything is in place for kdbus (modulo
the policy, see below). However, since the kdbus kernel module isn't
upstream yet and we want to keep our options for API changes open you
have to explicitly enable support with it for --enable-kdbus. By passing
that configure time option you void your warranty though, and
acknowledge that no binary compatibility will be provided. If you want
to test this use the kdbus git version from today.

--enable-kdbus covers not only the kdbus support itself but also a
couple of new APIs we added where we want to maintain a bit of freedom to
still change things for now.

Again, if you specify --enable-kdbus, don't be surprised when
unnannounced api changes take place! If you compile with the default of
--disable-kdbus API/ABI compatibility is kept however, and that's what
most people should use. If you build systemd for your distribution make
sure to pass --disable-kdbus!

This is a massive new release, it includes a lot of new code. You
probably don't want to base your LTS release on this. We hope to return
to a shorter release cycle now to stabilize the new code. Expect a
couple of bugfix releases over the next weeks.

We merged libsystemd-journal.so, libsystemd-id128.so, libsystemd-login
and libsystemd-daemon into a a single libsystemd.so to reduce code
duplication and avoid cyclic dependencies (see below). The new library
exports the same symbols as the old libraries, however with a different
symbol version. If "--enable-compat-libs" is specified while building
systemd you will get a set of compatibility libraries built that simply
map the old library calls to the new library. This is provided only to
ease the transition, please don't forget to pass "--disable-compat-libs"
(which is the default) after your distribution completed the
transition. Sorry for the complexities this involves!

This version is not available in Fedora Rawhide (unlike all other
releases we did which were available in Rawhide the day we released
them). The ARM toolchain is broken, doesn't do IFUNC. Since ARM is now a
full architecture of Fedora we cannot update systemd in Fedora until the
toolchain is fixed. Gah. (rhbz 1067245). I have no idea if and when we
can upload this to Fedora. I am tempted to simply disable building of
systemd on Fedora ARM for now, but I figure people might be
upset. Anyway, this is something for the Fedora ARM people to
figure out...

CHANGES WITH 209:

        * A new component "systemd-networkd" has been added that can
          be used to configure local network interfaces statically or
          via DHCP. It is capable of bringing up bridges, VLANs, and
          bonding. Currently, no hook-ups for interactive network
          configuration are provided. Use this for your initrd,
          container, embedded, or server setup if you need a simple,
          yet powerful, network configuration solution. This
          configuration subsystem is quite nifty, as it allows wildcard
          hotplug matching in interfaces. For example, with a single
          configuration snippet, you can configure that all Ethernet
          interfaces showing up are automatically added to a bridge,
          or similar. It supports link-sensing and more.

        * A new tool "systemd-socket-proxyd" has been added which can
          act as a bidirectional proxy for TCP sockets. This is
          useful for adding socket activation support to services that
          do not actually support socket activation, including virtual
          machines and the like.

        * Add a new tool to save/restore rfkill state on
          shutdown/boot.

        * Save/restore state of keyboard backlights in addition to
          display backlights on shutdown/boot.

        * udev learned a new SECLABEL{} construct to label device
          nodes with a specific security label when they appear. For
          now, only SECLABEL{selinux} is supported, but the syntax is
          prepared for additional security frameworks.

        * udev gained a new scheme to configure link-level attributes
          from files in /etc/systemd/network/*.link. These files can
          match against MAC address, device path, driver name and type,
          and will apply attributes like the naming policy, link speed,
          MTU, duplex settings, Wake-on-LAN settings, MAC address, MAC
          address assignment policy (randomized, ...).

        * When the User= switch is used in a unit file, also
          initialize $SHELL= based on the user database entry.

        * systemd no longer depends on libdbus. All communication is
          now done with sd-bus, systemd's low-level bus library
          implementation.

        * kdbus support has been added to PID 1 itself. When kdbus is
          enabled, this causes PID 1 to set up the system bus and
          enable support for a new ".busname" unit type that
          encapsulates bus name activation on kdbus. It works a little
          bit like ".socket" units, except for bus names. A new
          generator has been added that converts classic dbus1 service
          activation files automatically into native systemd .busname
          and .service units.

        * sd-bus: add a light-weight vtable implementation that allows
          defining objects on the bus with a simple static const
          vtable array of its methods, signals and properties.

        * systemd will not generate or install static dbus
          introspection data anymore to /usr/share/dbus-1/interfaces,
          as the precise format of these files is unclear, and
          nothing makes use of it.

        * A proxy daemon is now provided to proxy clients connecting
          via classic D-Bus AF_UNIX sockets to kdbus, to provide full
          compatibility with classic D-Bus.

        * A bus driver implementation has been added that supports the
          classic D-Bus bus driver calls on kdbus, also for
          compatibility purposes.

        * A new API "sd-event.h" has been added that implements a
          minimal event loop API built around epoll. It provides a
          couple of features that direct epoll usage is lacking:
          prioritization of events, scales to large numbers of timer
          events, per-event timer slack (accuracy), system-wide
          coalescing of timer events, exit handlers, watchdog
          supervision support using systemd's sd_notify() API, child
          process handling.

        * A new API "sd-rntl.h" has been added that provides an API
          around the route netlink interface of the kernel, similar in
          style to "sd-bus.h".

        * A new API "sd-dhcp-client.h" has been added that provides a
          small DHCPv4 client-side implementation. This is used by
          "systemd-networkd".

        * There is a new kernel command line option
          "systemd.restore_state=0|1". When set to "0", none of the
          systemd tools will restore saved runtime state to hardware
          devices. More specifically, the rfkill and backlight states
          are not restored.

        * The FsckPassNo= compatibility option in mount/service units
          has been removed. The fstab generator will now add the
          necessary dependencies automatically, and does not require
          PID1's support for that anymore.

        * journalctl gained a new switch, --list-boots, that lists
          recent boots with their times and boot IDs.

        * The various tools like systemctl, loginctl, timedatectl,
          busctl, systemd-run, ... have gained a new switch "-M" to
          connect to a specific, local OS container (as direct
          connection, without requiring SSH). This works on any
          container that is registered with machined, such as those
          created by libvirt-lxc or nspawn.

        * systemd-run and systemd-analyze also gained support for "-H"
          to connect to remote hosts via SSH. This is particularly
          useful for systemd-run because it enables queuing of jobs
          onto remote systems.

        * machinectl gained a new command "login" to open a getty
          login in any local container. This works with any container
          that is registered with machined (such as those created by
          libvirt-lxc or nspawn), and which runs systemd inside.

        * machinectl gained a new "reboot" command that may be used to
          trigger a reboot on a specific container that is registered
          with machined. This works on any container that runs an init
          system of some kind.

        * systemctl gained a new "list-timers" command to print a nice
          listing of installed timer units with the times they elapse
          next.

        * Alternative reboot() parameters may now be specified on the
          "systemctl reboot" command line and are passed to the
          reboot() system call.

        * systemctl gained a new --job-mode= switch to configure the
          mode to queue a job with. This is a more generic version of
          --fail, --irreversible, and --ignore-dependencies, which are
          still available but not advertised anymore.

        * /etc/systemd/system.conf gained new settings to configure
          various default timeouts of units, as well as the default
          start limit interval and burst. These may still be overridden
          within each Unit.

        * PID1 will now export on the bus profile data of the security
          policy upload process (such as the SELinux policy upload to
          the kernel).

        * journald: when forwarding logs to the console, include
          timestamps (following the setting in
          /sys/module/printk/parameters/time).

        * OnCalendar= in timer units now understands the special
          strings "yearly" and "annually". (Both are equivalent)

        * The accuracy of timer units is now configurable with the new
          AccuracySec= setting. It defaults to 1min.

        * A new dependency type JoinsNamespaceOf= has been added that
          allows running two services within the same /tmp and network
          namespace, if PrivateNetwork= or PrivateTmp= are used.

        * A new command "cat" has been added to systemctl. It outputs
          the original unit file of a unit, and concatenates the
          contents of additional "drop-in" unit file snippets, so that
          the full configuration is shown.

        * systemctl now supports globbing on the various "list-xyz"
          commands, like "list-units" or "list-sockets", as well as on
          those commands which take multiple unit names.

        * journalctl's --unit= switch gained support for globbing.

        * All systemd daemons now make use of the watchdog logic so
          that systemd automatically notices when they hang.

        * If the $container_ttys environment variable is set,
          getty-generator will automatically spawn a getty for each
          listed tty. This is useful for container managers to request
          login gettys to be spawned on as many ttys as needed.

        * %h, %s, %U specifier support is not available anymore when
          used in unit files for PID 1. This is because NSS calls are
          not safe from PID 1. They stay available for --user
          instances of systemd, and as special case for the root user.

        * loginctl gained a new "--no-legend" switch to turn off output
          of the legend text.

        * The "sd-login.h" API gained three new calls:
          sd_session_is_remote(), sd_session_get_remote_user(),
          sd_session_get_remote_host() to query information about
          remote sessions.

        * The udev hardware database now also carries vendor/product
          information of SDIO devices.

        * The "sd-daemon.h" API gained a new sd_watchdog_enabled() to
          determine whether watchdog notifications are requested by
          the system manager.

        * Socket-activated per-connection services now include a
          short description of the connection parameters in the
          description.

        * tmpfiles gained a new "--boot" option. When this is not used,
          only lines where the command character is not suffixed with
          "!" are executed. When this option is specified, those
          options are executed too. This partitions tmpfiles
          directives into those that can be safely executed at any
          time, and those which should be run only at boot (for
          example, a line that creates /run/nologin).

        * A new API "sd-resolve.h" has been added which provides a simple
          asynchronous wrapper around glibc NSS host name resolution
          calls, such as getaddrinfo(). In contrast to glibc's
          getaddrinfo_a(), it does not use signals. In contrast to most
          other asynchronous name resolution libraries, this one does
          not reimplement DNS, but reuses NSS, so that alternate
          host name resolution systems continue to work, such as mDNS,
          LDAP, etc. This API is based on libasyncns, but it has been
          cleaned up for inclusion in systemd.

        * The APIs "sd-journal.h", "sd-login.h", "sd-id128.h" are no
          longer found in individual libraries libsystemd-journal.so,
          libsystemd-login.so, libsystemd-id128.so. Instead, we have
          merged them into a single library, libsystemd.so, which
          provides all symbols. The reason for this is cyclic
          dependencies, as these libraries tend to use each other's
          symbols. So far, we've managed to workaround that by linking a
          copy of a good part of our code into each of these libraries
          again and again, which, however, makes certain things hard to
          do, like sharing static variables. Also, it substantially
          increases footprint. With this change, there is only one
          library for the basic APIs systemd provides. Also,
          "sd-bus.h", "sd-memfd.h", "sd-event.h", "sd-rtnl.h",
          "sd-resolve.h", "sd-utf8.h" are found in this library as
          well, however are subject to the --enable-kdbus switch (see
          below). Note that "sd-dhcp-client.h" and "sd-daemon.h" are not
          part of this library (the former because it only consumes,
          never provides, services of/to other APIs, and the latter
          because it is completely standalone). To make the transition
          easy from the separate libraries to the unified one, we
          provide the --enable-compat-libs compile-time switch which
          will generate stub libraries that are compatible with the
          old ones but redirect all calls to the new one.

        * All of the kdbus logic and the new APIs "sd-bus.h",
          "sd-memfd.h", "sd-event.h", "sd-rtnl.h", "sd-resolve.h",
          and "sd-utf8.h" are compile-time optional via the
          "--enable-kdbus" switch, and they are not compiled in by
          default. To make use of kdbus, you have to explicitly enable
          the switch. Note however, that neither the kernel nor the
          userspace API for all of this is considered stable yet. We
          want to maintain the freedom to still change the APIs for
          now. By specifying this build-time switch, you acknowledge
          that you are aware of the instability of the current
          APIs.

        * Also, note that while kdbus is pretty much complete,
          it lacks one thing: proper policy support. This means you
          can build a fully working system with all features; however,
          it will be highly insecure. Policy support will be added in
          one of the next releases, at the same time that we will
          declare the APIs stable.

        * When the kernel command-line argument "kdbus" is specified,
          systemd will automatically load the kdbus.ko kernel module. At
          this stage of development, it is only useful for testing kdbus
          and should not be used in production. Note: if "--enable-kdbus"
          is specified, and the kdbus.ko kernel module is available, and
          "kdbus" is added to the kernel command line, the entire system
          runs with kdbus instead of dbus-daemon, with the above mentioned
          problem of missing the system policy enforcement. Also a future
          version of kdbus.ko or a newer systemd will not be compatible with
          each other, and will unlikely be able to boot the machine if only
          one of them is updated.

        * systemctl gained a new "import-environment" command which
          uploads the caller's environment (or parts thereof) into the
          service manager so that it is inherited by services started
          by the manager. This is useful to upload variables like
          $DISPLAY into the user service manager.

        * A new PrivateDevices= switch has been added to service units
          which allows running a service with a namespaced /dev
          directory that does not contain any device nodes for
          physical devices. More specifically, it only includes devices
          such as /dev/null, /dev/urandom, and /dev/zero which are API
          entry points.

        * logind has been extended to support behaviour like VT
          switching on seats that do not support a VT. This makes
          multi-session available on seats that are not the first seat
          (seat0), and on systems where kernel support for VTs has
          been disabled at compile-time.

        * If a process holds a delay lock for system sleep or shutdown
          and fails to release it in time, we will now log its
          identity. This makes it easier to identify processes that
          cause slow suspends or power-offs.

        * When parsing /etc/crypttab, support for a new key-slot=
          option as supported by Debian is added. It allows indicating
          which LUKS slot to use on disk, speeding up key loading.

        * The sd_journald_sendv() API call has been checked and
          officially declared to be async-signal-safe so that it may
          be invoked from signal handlers for logging purposes.

        * Boot-time status output is now enabled automatically after a
          short timeout if boot does not progress, in order to give
          the user an indication what she or he is waiting for.

        * The boot-time output has been improved to show how much time
          remains until jobs expire.

        * The KillMode= switch in service units gained a new possible
          value "mixed". If set, and the unit is shut down, then the
          initial SIGTERM signal is sent only to the main daemon
          process, while the following SIGKILL signal is sent to
          all remaining processes of the service.

        * When a scope unit is registered, a new property "Controller"
          may be set. If set to a valid bus name, systemd will send a
          RequestStop() signal to this name when it would like to shut
          down the scope. This may be used to hook manager logic into
          the shutdown logic of scope units. Also, scope units may now
          be put in a special "abandoned" state, in which case the
          manager process which created them takes no further
          responsibilities for it.

        * When reading unit files, systemd will now verify
          the access mode of these files, and warn about certain
          suspicious combinations. This has been added to make it
          easier to track down packaging bugs where unit files are
          marked executable or world-writable.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new "--setenv=" switch to set
          container-wide environment variables. The similar option in
          systemd-activate was renamed from "--environment=" to
          "--setenv=" for consistency.

        * systemd-nspawn has been updated to create a new kdbus domain
          for each container that is invoked, thus allowing each
          container to have its own set of system and user buses,
          independent of the host.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --drop-capability= switch to run
          the container with less capabilities than the default. Both
          --drop-capability= and --capability= now take the special
          string "all" for dropping or keeping all capabilities.

        * systemd-nspawn gained new switches for executing containers
          with specific SELinux labels set.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --quiet switch to not generate
          any additional output but the container's own console
          output.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --share-system switch to run a
          container without PID namespacing enabled.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --register= switch to control
          whether the container is registered with systemd-machined or
          not. This is useful for containers that do not run full
          OS images, but only specific apps.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --keep-unit which may be used
          when invoked as the only program from a service unit, and
          results in registration of the unit service itself in
          systemd-machined, instead of a newly opened scope unit.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --network-interface= switch for
          moving arbitrary interfaces to the container. The new
          --network-veth switch creates a virtual Ethernet connection
          between host and container. The new --network-bridge=
          switch then allows assigning the host side of this virtual
          Ethernet connection to a bridge device.

        * systemd-nspawn gained a new --personality= switch for
          setting the kernel personality for the container. This is
          useful when running a 32bit container on a 64bit host. A
          similar option Personality= is now also available in service
          units.

        * logind will now also track a "Desktop" identifier for each
          session which encodes the desktop environment of it. This is
          useful for desktop environments that want to identify
          multiple running sessions of itself easily.

        * A new SELinuxContext= setting for service units has been
          added that allows setting a specific SELinux execution
          context for a service.

        * Most systemd client tools will now honour $SYSTEMD_LESS for
          settings of the "less" pager. By default, these tools will
          override $LESS to allow certain operations to work, such as
          jump-to-the-end. With $SYSTEMD_LESS, it is possible to
          influence this logic.

        * systemd's "seccomp" hook-up has been changed to make use of
          the libseccomp library instead of using its own
          implementation. This has benefits for portability among
          other things.

        * For usage together with SystemCallFilter=, a new
          SystemCallErrorNumber= setting has been introduced that
          allows configuration of a system error number to return on
          filtered system calls, instead of immediately killing the
          process. Also, SystemCallArchitectures= has been added to
          limit access to system calls of a particular architecture
          (in order to turn off support for unused secondary
          architectures). There is also a global
          SystemCallArchitectures= setting in system.conf now to turn
          off support for non-native system calls system-wide.

        Contributions from: Adam Williamson, Alex Jia, Anatol Pomozov,
        Ansgar Burchardt, AppleBloom, Auke Kok, Bastien Nocera,
        Chengwei Yang, Christian Seiler, Colin Guthrie, Colin Walters,
        Cristian Rodríguez, Daniel Buch, Daniele Medri, Daniel J
        Walsh, Daniel Mack, Dan McGee, Dave Reisner, David Coppa,
        David Herrmann, David Strauss, Djalal Harouni, Dmitry Pisklov,
        Elia Pinto, Florian Weimer, George McCollister, Goffredo
        Baroncelli, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Hendrik Brueckner, Igor
        Zhbanov, Jan Engelhardt, Jan Janssen, Jason A. Donenfeld,
        Jason St. John, Jasper St. Pierre, Jóhann B. Guðmundsson, Jose
        Ignacio Naranjo, Karel Zak, Kay Sievers, Kristian Høgsberg,
        Lennart Poettering, Lubomir Rintel, Lukas Nykryn, Lukasz
        Skalski, Łukasz Stelmach, Luke Shumaker, Mantas Mikulėnas,
        Marc-Antoine Perennou, Marcel Holtmann, Marcos Felipe Rasia de
        Mello, Marko Myllynen, Martin Pitt, Matthew Monaco, Michael
        Marineau, Michael Scherer, Michał Górny, Michal Sekletar,
        Michele Curti, Oleksii Shevchuk, Olivier Brunel, Patrik Flykt,
        Pavel Holica, Raudi, Richard Marko, Ronny Chevalier, Sébastien
        Luttringer, Sergey Ptashnick, Shawn Landden, Simon Peeters,
        Stefan Beller, Susant Sahani, Sylvain Plantefeve, Sylvia Else,
        Tero Roponen, Thomas Bächler, Thomas Hindoe Paaboel Andersen,
        Tom Gundersen, Umut Tezduyar Lindskog, Unai Uribarri, Václav
        Pavlín, Vincent Batts, WaLyong Cho, William Giokas, Yang
        Zhiyong, Yin Kangkai, Yuxuan Shui, Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek

        -- Berlin, 2014-02-20

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering, Red Hat