[Semibug] SystemD is literally the kitchen sink of Linux ; Linux starting to feel more and more alien as the years go on

[Ron / BCLUG]

Kyle Willett wrote on 2023-12-06 14:34:

> Thanks Ron for that education.  Like I said I hope I didn't offend
> anyone with my mailing list post.

No offence! I enjoy a discussion on the ins & outs of new tech.

I too see something new and my first reaction is, "Oh no..."

Followed by, "Why?"

And it's enjoyable to find out that people much smarter / more 
experienced than me have solid reasons for the change - I learn something.



> I have to wonder how real world a problem :
> "As such, PIDs do not allow another process to maintain a private,
> stable reference on a process."
> is?

I imagine that, for 99% of us, not at all (or, at least we wouldn't 
notice the problem, just some process being killed for unknown reasons).

But, for the 1% (the Google, Reddit, Facebook, Github, Twitter, banks, 
telecomms, etc.) -- having processes associated to incorrect PIDs could 
be very consequential.

Random killing of processes by blindly choosing a PID and hitting `kill 
-9 $wrong_pid` cannot end well.


One of the things that drew me to open source software was the ability 
to use the same tools as "the big boys", i.e. industrial-strength stuff.

So I see it as beneficial to have access to this, for free.

Probably will have absolutely zero impact on me, but I do not like the 
thought of `kill -9 $random_PID` on my systems.



> If OpenBSD hasn't yet found a reason to address this how bad can it
> be?  They are normally the first OS to address each security issue.
> First to PIE, first with Kernel layout reordering at boot, etc.

They've definitely contributed some really, *really* crucial stuff.

But... OpenBSD installs vs Linux installs: 1 to a million? 1:10,000,000?

Also, ignoring the install base ratio, think about the traffic by either 
volume or connections and ponder the ratio.

Probably just hasn't happened, or hasn't been noticed.

The link noted "On systems under pressure", so ... high constant load?



> That is interesting that FreeBSD adopted a similar method as did
> Illumos.  I will read those links tonight.

I found that interesting too.

I also plan on finishing the reading on that page.


Thanks!

rb