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Systemd Absorbs "su" Command Functionality
jones_supa writes: With a pull request systemd now supports a su command functional and can create privileged sessions that are fully isolated from the original session. The su command is seen as bad because what it is supposed to do is ambiguous. On one hand it's supposed to open a new session and change a number of execution context parameters, and on the other it's supposed to inherit a lot concepts from the originating session. Lennart Poettering's long story short: "`su` is really a broken concept. It will given you kind of a shell, and it's fine to use it for that, but it's not a full login, and shouldn't be mistaken for one." The replacement command provided by systemd is machinectl shell.
Lennart Poettering's long story short: "`su` is really a broken concept
Declaring established concepts as broken so you can "fix" them.
Su is not a broken concept; it's a long well-established fundamental of BSD Unix/Linux. You need a shell with some commands to be run with additional privileges in the original user's context.
If you need a full login you invoke 'su -' or 'sudo bash -'
Deciding what a full login comprises is the shell's responsibility, not your init system's job.
I know systemd sneers at the old Unix convention of keeping it simple, keeping it separate, but that's not the only convention they spit on. God intended Unix (Linux) commands to be cryptic things 2-4 letters long (like "su", for example). Not "systemctl", "machinectl", "journalctl", etc. Might as well just give everything a 47-character long multi-word command like the old Apple commando shell did.
Seriously, though, when you're banging through system commands all day long, it gets old and their choices aren't especially friendly to tab completion. On top of which why is "machinectl" a shell and not some sort of hardware function? They should have just named the bloody thing command.com.
Well, let me explain some of the problems that I've had with su.
Oh wait. I've never had problems with su. Ever. What is up with this???
Doing everything as systemd do, and adding 'su', is likely a new security threat.
There is no reason the creation of privileged sessions should depend on a particular init system. It's fairly obvious that is a bad idea from a software design perspective. The only architectural reason to build it like that is because so many distros already include systemd, so they don't have to worry about getting people to adopt this (incidentally, that's the same reason Microsoft tried to deeply embed the browser in their OS.....remember active desktop?)
If there are any systemd fans out there, I would love to hear them justify this from an architectural perspective.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's what Poettering has been doing his whole life, getting into good open source projects, squatting and then shitting all over them. The infection, stink and filth then linger for decades. He's a cancer on open source.
... Lennart Poettering's long story short: "`su` is really a broken concept. ...
So every command that Poettering thinks may be broken is added to the already bloated systemd?
.
How long before there is nothing left to GNU/Linux besides the Linux kernel and systemd?
mistype and execute the wrong command? No, not a common problem. Unix has man pages to look up commands, and man -k to find commands for a topic. Simple.
And java conventions of long method camel case names are regarded as silly in other languages, descriptive short methods are very possible
user = User.getUserByGuidBecauseImAJavaTwat(gid)
vs
user=User.(guid=gid)
So what you're saying is you like powershell?
Aliases are not realy a fix you can not reliably write shell script with them and stay portable.
No sir I dont like it.
I, for one, welcome this addition... every privilege escalation path you add is good for literally years of paid contract work.
"Delivering" the wrong thing is not an asset, it's a liability.
And that's why Poettering is a liability to the Linux community.
That's a bit rude... I think Poettering's main motivation has been to simply modernize Linux.
Where 'modernize' is a codeword for 'shit all over'.
The SJWs noticed they could make a lot of money working for a startup that has a crappy website and some VC funding, so they started getting jobs in the tech world. They didn't need to actually be able to do anything, because those VCs only cared that the company existed long enough to get an IPO. A company that pays a lot and lets them surf the web all day is ideal for an SJW.
But, yes, Poettering seems to pretty much follow all the rules of the SJW-ism, even if I haven't seen him out protesting with them. And systemd is a bloated, centralized bureaucracy imposed on the population because the Great Leader says so. Just like Communism.
That's a bit rude... I think Poettering's main motivation has been to simply modernize Linux.
Yeah, that's true. He sees features people want, and he builds them. For example, Debian distro builders were frustrated writing init scripts, so Poettering made something that filled the need of those distro builders. That's why it got adopted, because it contained features they wanted.
The problem of course is that he doesn't understand the Unix way, especially when it comes to good interfaces between code (IMNSHO).
The people who like systemd tend to like the features.......the people who dislike it, the architecture.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Please remember devuan (http://www.devuan.org), a Debian fork which aims to do away with systemd and all that bullcrap. It's picking up steam, and I believe things like these make it more and more worth it to help the new fork.
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
I am really tired of systemd. So really tired of the developers shoving that shit down the linux throat. It's not pretty, it seems to grow out of control, taking on more and more responsibility .... I don't even have an idea how to look at my logs anymore. Nor how to clear the damn things out! Adding toolkits should make the system as clear to understand as it was, not more complex. If it gets any worse it might as well be Windows 10!
init was easy to understand, easy to use. syslog was easy read easy to understand and easy to clear. All this bull about "it's a faster startup" is just ... well bull. I'm using a computer 20 times faster than I was a decade ago. You think 20 seconds off a minute startup is an achievement? It's seconds on a couple of days uptime; big f*cking deal.
Redhat, Fedora, turn away from the light and return to your roots!
Lennart Poettering's long story short: "`su` is really a broken concept
Of course to Lennart Poettering "su" is broken !!
Long story short --- To that egotistical son of a bitch, anything that is not made by him MUST BE 'broken'
'nuff said!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I had trouble with init scripts. The systemd init subsystem was a better approach. The problem was, systemd also brought in a lot of stuff that wasn't directly part of the init subsystem that I didn't want, don't want, and don't see any probability of ever wanting.
Yeah, that's basically the problem. Systemd is really three different things:
1) init system
2) cgroups manager (cgroups architecture is still crap, btw)
3) session manager
It probably does more stuff, but it's hard to keep track of it all
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
And java conventions of long method camel case names are regarded as silly in other languages, descriptive short methods are very possible
user = User.getUserByGuidBecauseImAJavaTwat(gid)
vs
user=User.(guid=gid)
And that makes sense to you? I don't recognize the language, but my guess it's one dot away from creating a user "user=User(guid=gid)". And if guid is a member variable, why are you assigning a value to it? Looks to me like you have some unnamed (...) function, does that imply "find"? Why? Go to your nearest CS school and 9 out of 10 pupils will figure out the purporse on the first function on the first try. You'd be lucky if 2 of 10 managed to guess the second. You're the kind of idiot which means people need 3-6 months of bootup time just to get into the head of the fucker who wrote the code.
I hate writing long variable and function names. I hate reading short variable and function names. And I've been back and forth, but here's my refined opinion: If you can't tell WTF the code is doing at a glance and want to add a micro-comment like "// find user", it's too obtuse. If you're trying to write a whole comment in the name like "getUserThatIsSomethingSomethingForWhateverBeforeThisAfterThat()", call it "getUser()" and write a damn comment. If it's ambigious, it's fine to start small and extend like if you used to have getUser() now you have getUserByGuid() and getUserByName().
As for the get/set prefix, I prefer the simpler user.guid() over user.getGuid() as it's really more a property than a function, you're just abstracting the implementation from the interface. Also you basically don't get any autocomplete before the 4th letter and it's not going to be consistent anyway, for true/false conditions you typically use "isSomething()". In this particularly case for a function I'd much rather call it "findUserByGuid()" though indicating it's a search on a set, not simply returning a value. Likewise if you have a class where you set numbers a and b and calculate the GCD, I'd much rather call the function calculateGcd() than getGcd() to point out that this function does the work. It gets a little ambiguous at times with "returnAddress()" the property vs "returnShipment()" the function where I sometimes reconsider that "getReturnAddress()" would be clearer but in 99% of the cases it's fine.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
PoetteringOS
In the long run, he's not going to be satisfied until he's created his own OS, kernel and all because he calls anything he didn't write a "broken concept," whatever that is, and does his best to shove his version down everybody's throat. And, since his version is far more complex, far more pervasive and much, much harder to use or maintain, the community suffers. I do wish he would get off the pot and start developing the One True (Pottering) kernel so that the rest of the world can go back to ignoring him.
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This has been going on for years, and has years more to go. This is a long term strategy.
But why?
Why has Red Hat been replacing standard Linux components with Red Hat components, when the Red Hat stuff is worse?
Why isn't systemd optional? It is just an init replacement, right? Why does Red Hat care which init you use?
Why is systemd being tied to so many other components?
Why binary logging? Who asked for that?
Why throw away POSIX, and the entire UNIX philosophy? Clearly you do not have to do that just to replace init.
Why does Red Hat instantly berate anybody who does not like systemd? Why the barrage of ad hominem attacks systemd critics?
I think there is only one logical answer to all of those questions, and it's glaringly obvious.