Bug 87230

Summary:	No way to configure systemd-gpt-auto-generator, or mask unwanted vendor's generators by user
Product:	systemd	Reporter:	Natrio <natrio>
Component:	general	Assignee:	systemd-bugs
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:	systemd-bugs
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description Natrio 2014-12-11 10:24:13 UTC

1) systemd-generators are typically used to convert configuration files in units.
But, systemd-gpt-auto-generator has NO config. 

2) As it says in a description of generators, "User configuration should override vendor configuration. This (mostly) means that stuff from /etc should override stuff from /usr."
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Generators/
However, the systemd-gpt-auto-generator is provided by the vendor and can not be overridden or disabled by user.
In addition, the generated units names contain non-permanent device names, like dev-sda1.swap, and therefore can't be reliably masked by user.

In other words, the systemd-gpt-auto-generator makes GPT, in some circumstances, a higher priority than the explicitly given configuration in fstab:

If GPT contain two swap partitions, with DEFAULT, non-changed "swap" ID, it will automatically connect both swaps, even if the fstab (or directly in the native units) explicitly stated to use ONLY ONE of them.


Possible solutions:
1) Make systemd-gpt-auto-generator configurable by user, to filter selected types of partitions, or ability to swich off GPT reading in main systemd config.
2) Make way to mask unwanted system-generators, like units or udev-rules.

Comment 1 Zbigniew Jedrzejewski-Szmek 2014-12-11 13:04:21 UTC

Agreed, generators should be maskable.

Comment 2 Christopher 2014-12-22 20:42:47 UTC

It is up to the user how they want their SWAP managed.  I have just discovered this nasty flaw and want it removed.  I have a separate /boot partition that loads different installations and now I find that this bug has been deliberately introduced.

When things like this are put into systemd it is no wonder that people hate it so much.  It most certainly does not allow the fstab to be used.

Anything that is added to systemd should be able to be disabled by systemctl or it should not be added at all.

Comment 3 Zbigniew Jedrzejewski-Szmek 2015-01-12 05:01:59 UTC

Generators are made maskable in commit http://cgit.freedesktop.org/systemd/systemd/commit/?id=e801700e9a. Some documentation updates are in order, but generally
  ln -s /dev/null /etc/systemd/system-generators/<name>
does the trick.

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