Systemd Continued Commanding Linux Systems In 2015

This year Ubuntu switched over to using systemd in place of Upstart, other distributions have also decided to take advantage of systemd, this project hosted its first conference, and the systemd feature-set continued to expand.

Systemd in 2015 gained its own UEFI boot-loader, picked up more networking features, added fsck support, came up with its own su-like command, added more feature integration with Btrfs, and many other features came about while others were refined.

What didn't happen in 2015 though was KDBUS didn't make it into the mainline Linux kernel. KDBUS is back in planning as an in-kernel IPC mechanism. Meanwhile, other systemd developers started working on BUS1 as a project with similar goals to KDBUS. BUS1 continues to see new development and it will be interesting to see where it heads in 2016.

With that said, here's a look at the most popular systemd stories on Phoronix in 2015:

Systemd Gains IP Forwarding, IP Masquerading & Basic Firewall Controls
The systemd project is off to a quick start in 2015 with already seeing over 200 commits (granted, in 2014 systemd development skyrocketed with nearly 5,000 commits). With the newest work that's landed, the networkd component to systemd has been improved with new features.

Gummiboot UEFI Boot Loader To Be Added To Systemd
The newest feature being worked on for systemd? A boot loader, of course! It was revealed this weekend that systemd developers are looking at integrating Gummiboot into systemd.

Systemd Kills Off Shutdownd
Systemd has eliminated shutdownd, one of the oldest components of this controversial init system, but its removal isn't because systemd is going on a diet.

Systemd Gets An Fsck Daemon/Service
The newest addition to systemd just a day after landing its new EFI boot manager is systemd-fsckd. This new addition was done by Ubuntu developers.

systemd Lands SD-Boot, Its EFI Boot Manager & Stub Loader
A few weeks ago I wrote how systemd developers were planning to add Gummiboot as a UEFI boot manager to systemd. Now, following the just-released systemd 219, they've gone ahead and added their initial code for providing systemd with a EFI boot manager.

Systemd 220 Has Finally Been Released
It's taken a while, but systemd 220 has been finally released.

Systemd 219 Released With A Huge Amount Of New Features
Lennart Poettering announced the release of systemd 219 today and it comes with a very large number of new features and changes.

BUS1: A New Linux Kernel IPC Bus Being Made By Systemd Developers
While KDBUS has yet to be mainlined as it was sent back to the drawing board, at least some of the systemd developers are working on a new kernel bus implementation called BUS1.

Systemd Introduces Its Own "su" Like Command
The latest addition to systemd is offering its own command to provide su-like behavior on Linux systems. The machinectl shell command is meant to replace su for running privileged sessions.

Systemd Adds Reboot To EFI Firmware Option
Systemd has picked up another feature for the upcoming systemd 220 release.