Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Compromised

Re:Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Comp... by teddyh on Saturday December 07, 2019 @11:07AM (#21730947)

If you want to find reasons to dislike systemd, you’ll find plenty to pick and choose from. But if you instead want to have systemd, and therefore want to find reasons that it’s worth it, you’ll likewise find lots of those. Whatever your initial opinion, you’ll find plenty of things to support your case.

Meta-reasons for wanting to like systemd in the first place include:

1a. It has plenty of nifty new features using the latest Linux features, most prominently cgroups.

2a. It makes it relatively easy to take advantage of those features for your own services, and/or to alter existing services to your liking.

3a. Probably for reasons 1a and 2a, most Linux distributions have long since changed to use systemd, and getting used to using a standard system is useful in real life.

The only meta-reasons for not liking systemd which I have seen are:

1b. It doesn’t work the way Unix always worked, and some people don’t like using it, since they don’t know all the ins and outs like they might do with the old systems.

2b. It seems to acquire, subsume and supplant lots of previously separate Unix systems like init, cron, syslog, ifconfig, etc. This, combined with 1b, only exacerbates the pain.

All other criticisms that I have seen can be adequately explained as being after-the-fact rationalizations stemming from 1b and 2b.

(Note: Anyone still using ifconfig on Linux should get with the program and start using ip(8) already: https://manpages.debian.org/testing/iproute2/ip.8.en.html)

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Re:Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Comp... by iso1631 on Saturday December 07, 2019 @11:35AM (#21731103)

Longevity and stability is a big issue for me. Systemd may be the new way to do things, but will it be doing it the same way in 5 years? I'm not confident it will.

iproute has nothing to do with systemd, and I use it a lot (although I prefer the default visibility of "ifconfig" rather than "ip -o a" to see what IPs I have on what interfaces).

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Re:Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Comp... by cycloptic on Saturday December 07, 2019 @11:49AM (#21731180)

Systemd does have a wiki page about this:

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/InterfaceS...

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Re:Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Comp... by gmueckl on Saturday December 07, 2019 @02:45PM (#21732164)

You're neglecting one other major reason for disliking systemd:

3b. Not working as advertised.

I have consistently run into major issues on various machines with trivial configurations. I am left with no choice but to ban systemd from all my machines because it's not usable.

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Re:Systemd Opened Security Hole in Linux, VPNs Could Be Comp... by teddyh on Saturday December 07, 2019 @07:31PM (#21733637)

I hear you. When I first tried to use systemd-networkd, it didn’t work. Last I tried, I couldn’t get systemd-resolved to work they way I like to configure things. However, systemd itself has mostly worked for me, and I trust (since its use is so common and upstream seems active) it’s only going to get better, and all these problems will be fixed. It’s all in what you personally want to believe in.

You are perfectly justified in avoiding what you see to be problematic software. However, it is mainstream, and bugs seem to be fixed over time. If we assume this to be true, there will come a time when systemd is working perfectly adequately for your needs, but you are completely unprepared to use it, since you haven’t had the training which most everyone else has gotten until then. You see? I have my rationalizations and you have yours.

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