Bug#887343: systemd-timesyncd does not start with DynamicUser=yes

[Guido Günther]

Hi,
On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 11:24:33AM +0100, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Am 15.01.2018 um 10:18 schrieb Guido Günther:
> > Package: systemd
> > Version: 236-3
> > Severity: normal
> > File: systemd-timesyncd.service
> > 
> > Hi,
> > on a newly installed (without installing recommends) system¹ systemd-timesyncd fails to start like
> > 
> > $ systemctl status systemd-timesyncd 
> > ● systemd-timesyncd.service - Network Time Synchronization
> >    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-timesyncd.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
> >    Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2018-01-15 08:58:10 UTC; 8min ago
> >      Docs: man:systemd-timesyncd.service(8)
> >   Process: 563 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-timesyncd (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
> >  Main PID: 563 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
> >    Status: "Shutting down..."
> > 
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Service has no hold-off time, scheduling restart.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: Stopped Network Time Synchronization.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Time Synchronization.
> > 
> > and the log has
> > 
> > Jan 15 08:58:09 foo systemd-timesyncd[563]: Cannot resolve user name systemd-timesync: No such process
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: systemd-timesyncd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
> > Jan 15 08:58:10 foo systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Time Synchronization.
> > 
> > This seems to be caused by the fact that libnss-systemd is not a hard
> > dependency of systemd. I'm not sure what the best solution is? Having a
> > service that is enabled by fails to start looks weird though. Maybe
> > providing a static user isn't that bad?
> > 
> 
> It requires libnss-systemd, yes. Do you not have it installed?
> It's a recommends, so should be installed by default

See above: "without installing recommends". My whole point is that the
systemd package installs a service that won't even start without the
recommends which looks somewhat wrong to me. I would expect that

    systemctl list-units --failed

would not contain any failed systemd units even without installing
recommends. If you think this is all wrong free to close it.

Thanks for all your work on systemd,
 -- Guido