systemd System and Service Manager
+CHANGES WITH 247 in spe:
+
+ * KERNEL API INCOMPATIBILTY: Linux 4.12 introduced two new uevents
+ "bind" and "unbind" to the Linux device model. When this kernel
+ change was made, systemd-udevd was only minimally updated to handle
+ and propagate these new event types. The introduction of these new
+ uevents (which are typically generated for USB devices and devices
+ needing a firmware upload before being functional) resulted in a
+ number of software issues, we so far didn't address (mostly because
+ there was hope the kernel maintainers would themeselves address these
+ issues in some form – which did not happen). To handle them properly,
+ many (if not most) udev rules files shipped in various packages need
+ updating, and so do many programs that monitor or enumerate devices
+ with libudev or sd-device, or otherwise process uevents. Please note
+ that this incompatibility is not fault of systemd or udev, but caused
+ by an incompatible kernel change that happened back in Linux 4.12.
+
+ To minimize issues resulting from this kernel change (but not avoid
+ them entirely) starting with systemd-udevd 247 the udev "tags"
+ concept (which is a concept for marking and filtering devices during
+ enumeration and monitoring) has been reworked: udev tags are now
+ "sticky", meaning that once a tag is assigned to a device it will not
+ be removed from the device again until the device itself is removed
+ (i.e. unplugged). This makes sure that any application monitoring
+ devices that match a specific tag is guaranteed to both see uevents
+ where the device starts being relevant, and those where it stops
+ being relevant (the latter now regularly happening due to the new
+ "unbind" uevent type). The udev tags concept is hence now a concept
+ tied to a *device* instead of a device *event* — unlike for example
+ udev properties whose lifecycle (as before) is generally tied to a
+ device event, meaning that the previously determined properties are
+ forgotten whenever a new uevent is processed.
+
+ With the newly redefined udev tags concept, sometimes it's necessary
+ to determine which tags are the ones applied by the most recent
+ uevent/database update, in order to discern them from those
+ originating from earlier uevents/database updates of the same
+ device. To accommodate for this a new automatic property CURRENT_TAGS
+ has been added that works similar to the existing TAGS property but
+ only lists tags set by the most recent uevent/database
+ update. Similar, the libudev/sd-device API has been updated with new
+ functions to enumerate these 'current' tags, in addition to the
+ existing APIs that now enumerate the 'sticky' ones.
+
+ To properly handle "bind"/"unbind" on Linux 4.12 and newer it is
+ essential that all udev rules files and applications are updated to
+ handle the new events. Specifically:
+
+ • All rule files that currently use a header guard similar to
+ ACTION!="add|change",GOTO="xyz_end" should be updated to use
+ ACTION=="remove",GOTO="xyz_end" instead, so that the
+ properties/tags they add are also applied whenever "bind" (or
+ "unbind") is seen. (This is most important for all physical device
+ types — as that's for which "bind" and "unbind" are currently
+ usually generated, for all other device types this change is still
+ recommended but not as important — but certainly prepares for
+ future kernel uevent type additions).
+
+ • Similar, all code monitoring devices that contains an 'if' branch
+ discerning the "add" + "change" uevent actions from all other
+ uevents actions (i.e. considering devices only relevant after "add"
+ or "change", and irrelevant on all other events) should be reworked
+ to instead negatively check for "remove" only (i.e. considering
+ devices relevant after all event types, except for "remove", which
+ invalidates the device). Note that this also means that devices
+ should be considered relevant on "unbind", even though conceptually
+ this — in some form — invalidates the device. Since the precise
+ effect of "unbind" is not generically defined, devices should be
+ considered relevant even after "unbind", however I/O errors
+ accessing the device should then be handled gracefully.
+
+ • Any code that uses device tags for deciding whether a device is
+ relevant or not most likely needs to be updated to use the new
+ udev_device_has_current_tag() API (or sd_device_has_current_tag()
+ in case sd-device is used), to check whether the tag is set
+ at the moment an uevent is seen (as opposed to the existing
+ udev_device_has_tag() API which checks if the tag ever existed on
+ the device, following the API concept redefinition explained
+ above).
+
+ We are very sorry for this breakage and the requirement to update
+ packages using these interfaces. We'd again like to underline that
+ this is not caused by systemd/udev changes, but result of a kernel
+ behaviour change.
+
+ * Since PAM 1.2.0 (2015) configuration snippets may be placed in
+ /usr/lib/pam.d/ in addition to /etc/pam.d/. If a file exists in the
+ latter it takes precedence over the former, similar to how most of
+ systemd's own configuration is handled. Given that PAM stack
+ definitions are primarily put together by OS vendors/distributions
+ (though possibly overridden by users), this systemd release moves its
+ own PAM stack configuration for the "systemd-user" PAM service (i.e.
+ for the PAM session invoked by the per-user user@.service instance)
+ from /etc/pam.d/ to /usr/lib/pam.d/. We recommend moving all
+ packages' vendor versions of their PAM stack definitions from
+ /etc/pam.d/ to /usr/lib/pam.d/, but if such OS-wide migration is not
+ desired the location to which systemd installs its PAM stack
+ configuration file may be changed via the "pamconfdir" meson variable
+ at build time, optionally undoing this change of default paths
+ introduced with systemd 247.
+
CHANGES WITH 246:
* The service manager gained basic support for cgroup v2 freezer. Units
generation for collection with systemd-pstore.
* We provide a set of udev rules to enable auto-suspend on PCI and USB
- devices that were tested to currectly support it. Previously, this
+ devices that were tested to correctly support it. Previously, this
was distributed as a set of udev rules, but has now been replaced by
by a set of hwdb entries (and a much shorter udev rule to take action
if the device modalias matches one of the new hwdb entries).