Systemd 238 Released, Adds New Temporary File-System Option

While systemd 237 was released just over one month ago, systemd 238 was released today as the next installment of this init system.

Systemd 238 continues with many changes throughout the stack for this most widely-used Linux init system. Some of the prominent changes of systemd 238 include:

- The MemoryAccounting unit property is now enabled by default now that cgroup memory accounting on recent kernels is "finally relatively minimal" that they feel comfortable having this memory accounting functionality enabled by default. The kernels where they recommend the default (enabled) behavior is Linux 4.14 and newer.

- The login shell of users created via sysusers.d can now be specified.

- The action that systemd-logind carries out when a laptop lid is closed and connected to external power is now configurable. This is via the new HandleLidSwitchExternalPower option.

- A new TemporaryFileSystem= option to msk parts of a real file-system tree with tmpfs mounts. This can be used for hiding files/directories not relevant to the unity or where you don't want any rogue units to potentially access. This also allows for ProtectHome=tmpfs to hide the user's home and runtime directories from units.

- /sys/fs/bpf is now mounted automatically.

There are also a number of other smaller changes and fixes. Systemd 238 can be downloaded via GitHub.