Systemd Gains IP Forwarding, IP Masquerading & Basic Firewall Controls

[duby229]

For some one who doesn't know how to program you sure are opinionated everytime you spout nonsense like this it just reinforces my opinion that you are ignorantantly sprouting off about things you have no idea about.

DBus is a message passing interface. If you knew anything about programming (which you addmitted you don't) then you'd know it enables more capable IPC than you otherwise have using the"old-school" posix ipc methods like sockets, shared memory or god help you signals. Modern desktops are expected to be capable of running many applications in parallel and those applications expect to be able to communicate with one another you need a common message passing interface to enable this, which is what DBus provides. Sure you can write programs without DBus you can even use all those old school ipc mechanisms I mentioned earlier to emulate the behaiour of DBus (poorly) but you create a lot of extra work and by the time you'd do all this hard work you'd have recreated huge chunks of DBus from scratch anyway. For better or worse DBus is the message passing interface for Linux. DBus is not some estotic thing that linux adopted to spite people like you. Almost all modern modern operating system have a similar message passing interface to DBus. Developers writing non-trivial applications expect something with DBus like capabilities.

If you knew anything about the history of k-KDBus you'd know it came from automotive world, you know those people who are using Linux in things like Sat-navs, car stereos etc. You can read about the history behind it here: https://lwn.net/Articles/551969/ but of course if you'd prefer to stay ignorant than go ahead. They tried other approaches (AF_BUS) before settling on KDBus.

I'm a Unix curmudgeon (some of my coworkers call me a Dinosaur) I admit it freely- you can pry Emacs+GDB from my cold dead hands but to argue dbus is a bad idea is just plain ignorant. This stupid attitude people have "If its good enough for system V unix its good enough for me" really needs to go away, times have changed it's not the 90's anymore.

I fully respect you're opinion. So in a way I do apologize.

[grndzro]

One problem might be the fear that more and more software starts to depend on systemd, thus reducing the choice of software non-systemd systems can use. The fear stems from the fact that udev was promised to never depend on systemd and then suddenly did, that the leading systemd developer explicetely asked the Gnome developers to hard depend on systemd, which it now does, afaik. And no, I'm not gonna pull out that mailing list posts for you, I know I have read them and if you want proof, go find it yourself.

The complexity added from maintaining alternatives is counterproductive and would be much better spent adding the same functionality to a .d module. That way there is one point of contention to program against for other projects. Systemd is modular and is now becoming the standard. It would be better to leverage the popularity and create something within systemd that can be easily used by anyone who prefers it rather than breaking off and creating something that will eventually die.

Integrating all those things into systemd is actually the only way to save them at this point. It ensures a stable programming model for the future. And that is what Linux needs right now.

[geearf]

So with your logic if someone comes and takes your car and tells you that you must use a pair of ice skates to get to work all year round, then that's your fault? You must not be very intelligent, since it isn't my fault that systemd is being force fed down everyone's throats and that it is eating the Operating System. It isn't my fault that when people go to their distro's to help keep their beloved init system alive or to give an alternative that they get shunned because it's not systemd, because that is systemd's fault. Systemd came in and took over without giving anyone a chance to stop it. You can love your systemd but you will see that there was really two sides in this and not one (systemd) and that your beloved Linux is no longer Linux, that in fact it is SystemdOS. Just so you know Linux is about the user/community not the developer.

Hmmm, I don't believe anyone forces you to update your system.
When you buy a car, you don't get free upgrades of it in the future...
It's a pretty bad analogy...

As for Linux being about the community, again I am not sure.
Linus created it for himself and before it became any big, many devs joined as well for themselves.
On the other hand GNU was created for the users/community.

[matt_g]

If you want a car analogy here you go:

There once was a car called System V Unix it worked pretty well in the 1990's but by now it is beginning to show its age, it didn't have power steering and the fuel ecconomy was not what you'd expect from a modern vehicle. A mechanic called Poettering came along and took a look at it and decided to replace the old steering system (known as sys V init) with a modern power steering design the car dealerships (distributions) like his improvements so much they decided to incorporate them into their production models. Unfortunately a bunch of customers got uppity they didn't like the fact that they could now park their new cars so much easier then they could previously. These people had always steered their cars with great difficultly and damned if some mechanic from Red Hat was going to change how they steered. You see to these people the fact their cars had the turning circle of a boat and was unweildly as hell to manage was a point of pride.

Most people were greatful for the improved steering and got on with their lives. A little while later Poettering decided that those old drum brakes could do with improvement so he designed a new Anti lock Breaking System it was much safer and anyone who knew anything about mechanical engineering agreed it was a superior solution. Then those customers got uppity again "first our steering now our breaks when will the madness end" they cried. These people made some superious claims "Antilock breaks are so much more complex they are anti-Unix... breaks should only do one thing... Anti lock breaks aren't needed its a bunch of uneccesary bloat."

Poettering and his friends would go on to redesign and improve many parts of the cars "plumbing layer" each time he did the same ignorant uniformed opinions would pipe up.

I hope that helps.

[Homer-Simpson]

If you want a car analogy here you go:
(Humongus Snip for space savings)
I hope that helps.

Not a bad analogy Matt. My concern is the speed this is moving at. Adding a huge potential attack surface, growing faster than we can test it in the field, introduces security risks my clients cannot tolerate. Maybe in less sensitive fields the concern is lower. I would like to see a more cautious approach to such sweeping change. Now that the firewall is involved all my red flags are up. I am glad to see the systemd team has expanded as 'many eyes make clean code'.

[Bart]

Hmmm, I don't believe anyone forces you to update your system.
When you buy a car, you don't get free upgrades of it in the future...
It's a pretty bad analogy...

As for Linux being about the community, again I am not sure.
Linus created it for himself and before it became any big, many devs joined as well for themselves.
On the other hand GNU was created for the users/community.

You took my post out of context, as there was a quote from MoonMoon stating that since the init system that we are use to is being ripped away and replaced with systemd is our the users fault. I was just taking their logic and putting in play, to show how dumb that logic really is. You can't expect to place blame on the innocent, there are plenty of posts on here already that actually point at the person or persons to blame. I myself am sick of the whole systemd garbage. Look at Gentoo they give you choice of which you want to run, but they are the only ones, the rest are forcing it down your throats and seems like no one gives a shit. Everyone seems to be "oh it's what happens", I think people forgets that Linux is not a huge corporation like Microsoft and just goes on with whatever.

[Zoll]

Oh. My. God. I just checked SystemD github and found this commit https://github.com/systemd/systemd/c...ec63a0094f5c4f

I have no idea what it does but it looks evil, can we please start a flamewar?

[xeekei]

I also wondered about iptables vs NFtables. Why would networkd use the old and not the new? I might be missing something

[gilboa]

I'm sorry gilboa, but this just isn't right. I have massive respect for you, but you're wrong on this respect.

I can help with tracking down bugs or with documentation. But, I'm not a coder. I've tried to learn, but I don't have the skills for it. (more or less it's the organization skills) Sometimes you need to kick people in the balls to convince them to act.

If you like systemd and it works for you, then great. But, don't assume that your needs are the same as everyone elses.

First, "I can help with tracking down bugs or with documentation" is *very* important. I would imagine that the Devuan project will require a lot of testing and documentation. I would imagine that your help will be greatly appreciated.

Second, I'm not saying you shouldn't "kick their balls", I am suggesting that it is grossly ineffective, and generates a lot of animosity which or more less nullifies any chance that your views will be heard.

In 2-3 years, the Linux user-mode base system will be unified into a single project - much like the Linux kernel. I doubt that there's a way to stop it. (Most, if not all the corporate backers behind Linux swear by it).
You (as in people who dislike systemd) have one shot at this. For Devuan to become a real alternative to this base system, a lot of smart people need to stop wasting time in Phoronix/LWN/OSNews/Slashdot/etc, and start hacking/testing/documenting/etc.

- Gilboa

[nanonyme]

You took my post out of context, as there was a quote from MoonMoon stating that since the init system that we are use to is being ripped away and replaced with systemd is our the users fault. I was just taking their logic and putting in play, to show how dumb that logic really is. You can't expect to place blame on the innocent, there are plenty of posts on here already that actually point at the person or persons to blame. I myself am sick of the whole systemd garbage. Look at Gentoo they give you choice of which you want to run, but they are the only ones, the rest are forcing it down your throats and seems like no one gives a shit. Everyone seems to be "oh it's what happens", I think people forgets that Linux is not a huge corporation like Microsoft and just goes on with whatever.

Systemd is not mandatory as init on Debian either fwiw. Yes, Linux is not a corporation. Corporations have customers, OSS projects have contributors and freeloaders. Freeloading is pretty much the same as sitting home during every election and then being astonished how your candidate did not win. Contributing does not only mean code changes, it also means getting your arse to decision-making positions in projects you care about so you get to participate in planning the future