Post #1394348

2024-06-18 16:52 UTC

@mhoye tmpfiles just needs to be renamed. It hasn't been just for temporary files for a very long time. Yes this is a foot gun /home is not a temporary file. And it has never been seen as one by systemd. In fact, systemd has tools like homed that are designed explicitly to give more control of your home dir to you, the user, with more flexibility over it than with traditional home dirs. I think that's as clear as it gets. So no, systemd is not only for landlords. Quite the opposite.

Replies (3)

@dalias@hachyderm.io 2024-06-19 04:36

@AdrianVovk @mhoye There absolutely should not be functionality to rm -rf /home in systemd or anything that would ever be installed on non-landlord systems. There is no plausible reason for someone ever to want that done as some sort of automatic management process to their own personal system.

Open ##1394350
@oddhack@mstdn.social 2024-06-23 14:33

@AdrianVovk @mhoye in 43 years of using Unix I have had exactly zero need for "more control and flexibility" over my home directory. But please, explain why it's Really Important that a system utility other than 'adduser' should be mucking around 'controlling' my home directory.

Open ##1394390
@dan_ballard@kolektiva.social 2024-06-23 16:04

@AdrianVovk @mhoye if any software I ever released ever unexpectedly deleted a user's home dir I'd be beyond upset. The systemd team (and some fans) hardly seem to care and this attitude is a huge part of the problem. The response range of RTFM to "I guess we can add a bit more docs meh" entirely misses the mark for me. But is exactly what i expect from that team sadly. Unexpectedly deleting user data is beyond trust breaking and software I want to use and work on has a different attitude. One that when working on functions that could ever get close to that warn users, are wrapped in protects, etc. not ones that causally delete a /home directory. I think the reason I'm having a hard time articulating it here is because the entire point of view and user focus I and the systemd team are operating from are very far apart. If something has a chance to delete user data it needs so many warning and appropriate labeling. That this didn't and the team never apologized once is a very stark data point to me. As another angle. Unix apps arent traditionally huge on side effects and so again it's quite a lot for something supposed to be removing tmp files to kill a home dir. I don't care about mislabeling or functional drift. The fact no one at what sounds like many stages of development and then even reporting saw this as the problem that some of us do is the problem. Sorry this got long and ranty a bit but I'm trying to express the magnitude of the gulf I see here

Open ##1394393