Systemd-homed has been merged as the latest (optional) fundamental change to Linux distributions in how home directories are handled.

Systemd-homed makes it easier to support migratable home directories, more self containment within home directories, better password and encryption handling, and other modern Linux home directory features.

Some of the design objectives for systemd-homed are outlined in the documentation with support for LUKS encrypted volumes, mounting home directories from a CIFS server, FSCRYPT encryption, Btrfs sub-volume handling, and making use of JSON-formatted user records.

Systemd-homed is the server for managing home directories and user accounts. The user-space tool for interacting with this new service is homectl to create/remove/change user's home directories.

Landing systemd-homed adds over twenty-one thousand lines of code to systemd.

Systemd-homed will be part of the upcoming systemd 245 release though expect this new service to continue to be refined with more functionality in future releases. We'll see how quickly systemd-homed gets adopted by the major Linux distribution players.