Bug#1101532: systemd: unable to migrate to Testing because of removed packages

[Noah Meyerhans]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 11:47:07PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> > I am really sorry for the disruption, but unfortunately when features
> > need to be dropped, there's bound to be some of that. Let's keep in
> > mind though, that we are talking about an optional 2% popcon package.
> Considering all the quality issues with systemd-resolved I think that Red
> Hat made the right call when they classified it as "Technology Preview",
> i.e. "totally unsupported if it breaks you keep both pieces".
> Upstream has always been clear in explaining that it was still somehow
> experimental software and so it should not have been used by the cloud
> images, but maybe there is still time to correct this mistake and stop for
> trixie.

Maybe so, but the reality is that, if systemd-networkd is the dhcp
client and the DNS server list is distributed via the DHCP leases, then
there's currently no good alternative.  Even if parts of it are horribly
buggy (I have no idea if that's the case), systemd-resolved can be
configured to operate in a number of different ways.  In its most
minimal configuration, it just manages the contents of /etc/resolv.conf
and is not directly involved in the name resolution process at all.
That's how we use it in the bookworm cloud images, and it has proven
reliable.

So I don't consider our usage of systemd-resolved to be a mistake any
more than I consider our usage of systemd-networkd to be one.  Removing
it would not benefit our users in any way.

noah