Available now for all Linux kernel-based operating systems

Nov 18, 2015 22:50 GMT  ·  By

The systemd developers have just published a new maintenance release of the controversial systemd init system for Linux kernel-based operating systems, version 228, a bugfix release that adds over 20 changes.

According to the attached changelog, systemd 228 updates many properties that could be previously set only in unit files also to work when programmatically generating transient units via the bus, a process that now allows systemd to pass in a set of file descriptors, which can be used as STDERR, STDOUT, and STDIN for the invoked process.

system 228 brings support for creating slice units transiently via the bus APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), adds support for UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) timestamps, along with support for specifying timestamps with sub-second accuracy.

"We just tagged a new release, slightly delayed due to the conference. It includes several new features, some old cruft removed, and many bugfixes," says David Herrmann, one of the developers working with Lennart Poettering on the systemd project.

The many changes of systemd 228

In addition to the changes mentioned above, systemd 228 implements a new "--sync" switch to journalctl, adds two new line types ("q" and "Q") to systemd-tmpfiles, introduces a new "--chroot" switch to systemd-detect-virt, and adds support for CPU index ranges to CPUAffinity=.

There's also a brand new system.conf setting in systemd 228, called DefaultTasksMax=, which can be used to control the default TasksMax= setting for scopes and services that run on the respective GNU/Linux operating system. Additionally, systemd-nspawn has received an all-new "--network-veth-extra=" switch.

Last but not least, systemd 228 introduces a brand new service execution setting called PassEnvironment=. Download systemd 228 right now from Softpedia or use the default package manager of your GNU/Linux distribution to update your systemd packages to version 228 once they're available in the default software repositories of the respective OS.

Systemd 228 Changelog