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I tend to approach such tasks by just copying and editing a unit that shipped with the os (e.g sshd) — the example the post gives as being problematic is using

I tend to approach such tasks by just copying and editing a unit that shipped with the os (e.g sshd) — the example the post gives as being problematic is using some timer feature instead of cron and I suppose my question is really: who is doing that anyway? I know you can rig up systemd to act like inetd or cron, but perhaps you would be better with an actual service (how hard is quartz?) than baking your jobs into systemd units.. That said, I only use Linux in prod for enterprise stuff that depends on it, everything else is on bsd so you can probably guess my opinion on systemd ;)

Skunkleton 7y ago
I'm one of the (rare?) people who actually likes systemd. On Arch Linux, it is uniformly applied to the whole system and is actually a nice experience IMO. This contrasts with other distros that use a hodgepodge of sysv-init, upstart, and others. Even still, I think that systemd has discoverability and verbosity issues that should be addressed.
- oconnor663 7y ago
  Not rare. The majority of Linux distros have switched to systemd because the majority of people who work with it like it better than what they were using before. It's just that no one ever made it to the front page of HN writing a blog post titled "This technology is generally decent."
  - wibble10 7y ago
    I dunno about that, the majority of ops guys I work with (or have worked with over the last few years) dislike it... we’re mostly angry old greybeards though.
    - bashinator 7y ago
      Greybeard here - I like systemd well enough. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than rando SYSV init scripts. Journald and journalctl are loads better than /var/log.
      - wibble10 7y ago
        Have you used openbsd for anything lately? Systemd is better than the horrible mess of upstart/sysv etc, although the one linux laptop I run is using void (and thus, runit) and you can type init 6 and it doesn’t randomly hang for 2 minutes while shutting down if you’re not using gnome/kde.. imagine! The future is here ;)
        bashinator 7y ago
        It's been a number of years - doesn't openbsd use just plain /etc/rc and /etc/rc.conf? I like that better than init.d just because it enforces some standards around the scripting at least. I admin a number of ubuntu servers running systemd, and they all shut down/reboot pretty much instantaneously.
        pmoriarty 7y ago
        I have to give a second endorsement to runit. I really wish more distros would use it.
      - wibble10 7y ago
        Why are they loads better btw? I think in composable commands, being able to cat my logs without first setting them up to pipe to a syslog is something I very much want...
        bashinator 7y ago
        Being able to view logs based on the name of the service instead of the name of the logfile. `journalctl -u <unit>` vs `less /var/log/service/something.log` Being able to specify date ranges instead of grepping around multiple files. `journalctl -u <unit> -s <start> -e <end>` instead of horrid combinations of grep and gzcat. "Okay," you say, "but that's all for logs on the host. Shouldn't you be using Splunk or an ELK stack?" Journalctl can export logs in a json format that can be natively consumed by splunk for free metadata markup. I wrote some container sidecars to do exactly that, and it worked great. The only thing I don't like about journalctl is that it doesn't line wrap by default.
- 1996 7y ago
  Count me too. I love systemd and use it extensively to manage programs that can crash or randomly fail. It can monitor many things including ram usage, and manages dependencies. Also it is everywhere by default - one less moving part I have to manage.
- jandrese 7y ago
  I spent the time to learn it and yeah, it's pretty nice when it's working. The problem is of course when you need to do something that isn't supported by SystemD, in which case you're in for a world of hurt as the system constantly fights you. For example, I had a requirement to make sure some machines randomized their MAC addresses when connecting to untrusted WiFi in Ubuntu 14. Turns out this functionality was broken in NetworkManager and trying to go around its back was a huge huge headache because the system was relentless in checking the MAC of the interface and setting it back to the physical one. There are other times where it bites you in the ass too, like writing a raw image to a SD card. In the old days you would just dd the image onto the card, but you can't do that anymore because shortly after you write the filesystem header to the card SystemD will notice the new filesystem attempt to mount it, killing off your dd process. I always try to work with SystemD now because it's so much harder to fight it.
  - loudmax 7y ago
    To be fair, you can run systemd without NetworkManager or an automounter. For network access, you can run dhcpcd with systemd (on Arch anyway). I've never wanted an automounter on any system. Likewise, systemd doesn't prevent you from running ALSA instead of PulseAudio. The flexibility is there. Better documentation/best practices would be helpful.
  - rob-olmos 7y ago
    What was the solution for the SD card imaging?
    - jandrese 7y ago
      Download a bloated electron app to do the imaging, like you're on Windows. https://www.balena.io/etcher/ https://www.balena.io/etcher/
      - wibble10 7y ago
        Eurgh. What have we done? :(
  - 7y ago
- stefan_ 7y ago
  I'm sure it's a nice init program, and god knows sysvinit is garbage, but I'm much less clear why systemd needs to be my fucking DNS resolver, too.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    It doesn't. Systemd-resolverd is a separate application, completely optional and only Ubuntu uses it by default. Not that it is bad, but you don't have to use it.
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    It doesn't need one, but systemd-resolved works quite well and integrates nicely with other services. Systemd-resolved isn't mandatory, and you can still just use /etc/resolv.conf pointed to an external DNS server.
- kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  I thought most people like systemd but those who do not are very loud.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- thom 7y ago
  Same for me, in fact Arch was the impetus for me to actually dig into all the things systemd could do (which I guess is the point of Arch). That said, I have had the exact issues linked in the article, staring in puzzlement that there's no simple way to ship errors from systemd via email. I actually really love journalctl but there's a big market for more tooling around it (it also annoys me that I can't remap log levels of different units, for example).
paulddraper 7y ago
The reason for using timers is that you can make them dependent on sockets, files, file systems, etc. Love it or hate it, the whole idea of systemd is to centralize all task-ish management, whether one-offs, long-running, periodically-running, static resources, logs, etc.

Skunkleton 7y ago

I'm one of the (rare?) people who actually likes systemd. On Arch Linux, it is uniformly applied to the whole system and is actually a nice experience IMO. This contrasts with other distros that use a hodgepodge of sysv-init, upstart, and others. Even still, I think that systemd has discoverability and verbosity issues that should be addressed.

oconnor663 7y ago
Not rare. The majority of Linux distros have switched to systemd because the majority of people who work with it like it better than what they were using before. It's just that no one ever made it to the front page of HN writing a blog post titled "This technology is generally decent."
- wibble10 7y ago
  I dunno about that, the majority of ops guys I work with (or have worked with over the last few years) dislike it... we’re mostly angry old greybeards though.
  - bashinator 7y ago
    Greybeard here - I like systemd well enough. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than rando SYSV init scripts. Journald and journalctl are loads better than /var/log.
    - wibble10 7y ago
      Have you used openbsd for anything lately? Systemd is better than the horrible mess of upstart/sysv etc, although the one linux laptop I run is using void (and thus, runit) and you can type init 6 and it doesn’t randomly hang for 2 minutes while shutting down if you’re not using gnome/kde.. imagine! The future is here ;)
      - bashinator 7y ago
        It's been a number of years - doesn't openbsd use just plain /etc/rc and /etc/rc.conf? I like that better than init.d just because it enforces some standards around the scripting at least. I admin a number of ubuntu servers running systemd, and they all shut down/reboot pretty much instantaneously.
      - pmoriarty 7y ago
        I have to give a second endorsement to runit. I really wish more distros would use it.
    - wibble10 7y ago
      Why are they loads better btw? I think in composable commands, being able to cat my logs without first setting them up to pipe to a syslog is something I very much want...
      - bashinator 7y ago
        Being able to view logs based on the name of the service instead of the name of the logfile. `journalctl -u <unit>` vs `less /var/log/service/something.log` Being able to specify date ranges instead of grepping around multiple files. `journalctl -u <unit> -s <start> -e <end>` instead of horrid combinations of grep and gzcat. "Okay," you say, "but that's all for logs on the host. Shouldn't you be using Splunk or an ELK stack?" Journalctl can export logs in a json format that can be natively consumed by splunk for free metadata markup. I wrote some container sidecars to do exactly that, and it worked great. The only thing I don't like about journalctl is that it doesn't line wrap by default.
1996 7y ago
Count me too. I love systemd and use it extensively to manage programs that can crash or randomly fail. It can monitor many things including ram usage, and manages dependencies. Also it is everywhere by default - one less moving part I have to manage.
jandrese 7y ago
I spent the time to learn it and yeah, it's pretty nice when it's working. The problem is of course when you need to do something that isn't supported by SystemD, in which case you're in for a world of hurt as the system constantly fights you. For example, I had a requirement to make sure some machines randomized their MAC addresses when connecting to untrusted WiFi in Ubuntu 14. Turns out this functionality was broken in NetworkManager and trying to go around its back was a huge huge headache because the system was relentless in checking the MAC of the interface and setting it back to the physical one. There are other times where it bites you in the ass too, like writing a raw image to a SD card. In the old days you would just dd the image onto the card, but you can't do that anymore because shortly after you write the filesystem header to the card SystemD will notice the new filesystem attempt to mount it, killing off your dd process. I always try to work with SystemD now because it's so much harder to fight it.
- loudmax 7y ago
  To be fair, you can run systemd without NetworkManager or an automounter. For network access, you can run dhcpcd with systemd (on Arch anyway). I've never wanted an automounter on any system. Likewise, systemd doesn't prevent you from running ALSA instead of PulseAudio. The flexibility is there. Better documentation/best practices would be helpful.
- rob-olmos 7y ago
  What was the solution for the SD card imaging?
  - jandrese 7y ago
    Download a bloated electron app to do the imaging, like you're on Windows. https://www.balena.io/etcher/ https://www.balena.io/etcher/
    - wibble10 7y ago
      Eurgh. What have we done? :(
- 7y ago
stefan_ 7y ago
I'm sure it's a nice init program, and god knows sysvinit is garbage, but I'm much less clear why systemd needs to be my fucking DNS resolver, too.
- vetinari 7y ago
  It doesn't. Systemd-resolverd is a separate application, completely optional and only Ubuntu uses it by default. Not that it is bad, but you don't have to use it.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  It doesn't need one, but systemd-resolved works quite well and integrates nicely with other services. Systemd-resolved isn't mandatory, and you can still just use /etc/resolv.conf pointed to an external DNS server.
kpU8efre7r 7y ago
I thought most people like systemd but those who do not are very loud.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
thom 7y ago
Same for me, in fact Arch was the impetus for me to actually dig into all the things systemd could do (which I guess is the point of Arch). That said, I have had the exact issues linked in the article, staring in puzzlement that there's no simple way to ship errors from systemd via email. I actually really love journalctl but there's a big market for more tooling around it (it also annoys me that I can't remap log levels of different units, for example).

paulddraper 7y ago

The reason for using timers is that you can make them dependent on sockets, files, file systems, etc. Love it or hate it, the whole idea of systemd is to centralize all task-ish management, whether one-offs, long-running, periodically-running, static resources, logs, etc.