After three months of development, systemd 262 has been released. This new version of the system manager implements the integration of a minimum set of unit files into the process, provides support for assembly with static linking, integrates with dm-clone for cloning block devices, and adds database maintenance of installed files in systemd-sysupdate.
Among the changes in the new release are:
- The system manager executable file now contains a built-in set of basic unit files, which are used when it is impossible to load unit files from disk. This integration allows containers with an init process based on systemd to be launched without installing unit files.
- Support for assembly in the form of a single statically linked executable file has been added. This can be used to initialize and start services in containers with minimal setup. To build with static linking, certain flags need to be specified when running meson.
- Integrated support for the dm-clone kernel module, allowing the creation of a writable clone of a block device based on a read-only block device. Settings from /etc/clonetab are processed by systemd-clonesetup-generator and stored in the form of [email protected] units bound to clonesetup.target. A utility called systemd-clonesetup has been added for creating and deleting clones of block devices.
- Enhancements to the systemd-sysupdate toolkit, which is designed for automatic detection, download, and installation of updates using an atomic mechanism for replacing partitions, files, or directories. The toolkit now includes maintenance of a database with information about all installed files and commands to control how features and components are enabled. The concept of recommended components has also been implemented.
/Reports, release notes, official announcements.