Systemd Working On "Storage Target Mode" Feature - Inspired By Apple macOS

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Systemd Working On "Storage Target Mode" Feature - Inspired By Apple macOS

Lennart Poettering has been working on a new systemd feature called systemd-storagetm that is inspired by the Apple macOS "Target Disk Mode" feature...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/systemd-storagetm

[cynic]

cool feature, IMHO!

[X_m7]

While looking at the linked PR I saw this comment:

The idea is that tgtmode.target can be extended sooner or later, for example to expose block devices also as USB mass storage devices and similar, in case the system has "dual mode" USB controller that can also work as device, not just as host.

I wonder which devices would have such a controller, if any, and how one can check for the presence for such a controller. One of the comments in the PR mentioned the Raspberry Pi as an example (and I assume phones that support having flash drives and such plugged into them would also have one), but I'm more interested in whether devices like the Steam Deck or similar handhelds could support that feature, since booting into a live USB to fix things might be harder without a keyboard, mouse and/or dongle laying around for those.

Plus, being able to transfer files without having to muck around with whatever network nonsense would be great too.

[skeevy420]

cool feature, IMHO!

I thought the same thing, too, especially for enterprise users that have a lot of remote machines that they manage....so it's only a matter of time until 1000 other people politely say otherwise since that seems to be par for the course when systemd and Lennart are mentioned.

Can't wait to see what Lennart and the rest of the systemd devs turn this into in the future

[kenjo]

cool feature, IMHO!

maybe but don't we solve this paticular problem with a bootable USB stick ? I mean you already need access to another linux computer anyway to use this feature.

Now if they had somehow managed to implement the mac feature that allows you to replace the main drive with a new empty one and then just turn it on and install the os directly using wifi. That would have been a nice feature. but then that has to be done in BIOS to actually work so they can't but it would have been nice.

[cynic]

maybe but don't we solve this paticular problem with a bootable USB stick ? I mean you already need access to another linux computer anyway to use this feature.

Now if they had somehow managed to implement the mac feature that allows you to replace the main drive with a new empty one and then just turn it on and install the os directly using wifi. That would have been a nice feature. but then that has to be done in BIOS to actually work so they can't but it would have been nice.

do you know of any bootable USB stick that does this already?
I'd like to have one to carry with me in my toolbox!

for the feature in systemd, as another user already mentioned, it could be useful for system that you cannot phisically access, for example if you need to help someone remotely that maybe is not able to burn a USB stick or cannot do it because its PC is not working.

[dammarin]

This is very cool, something I missed on occasion from my Mac days. Essentially, this turns a computer into an external disk enclosure, so you can e.g. clone drives without having an intermediate device to store the images in.

[unwind-protect]

How is this systemd's busine...

... wait this is actually useful and cool.

[Britoid]

How is this systemd's busine...

... wait this is actually useful and cool.

On modern distros systemd is the first third-party code that runs (systemd-boot) and the last (systemd calling halt), so probably makes sense its implemented somewhere in there.

[JEBjames]

Michael

Typo

"ssystemd-tgtmode" should be "systemd-tgtmode"?