user root directory could be configurable

[Louson]

Component

systemd

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

As described in sysusers.d/basic.conf.in, the root home directory is /root. Some distributions use /home/root (I have a distribution built on yocto)

Could this be defined in the build configuration ?

Describe the solution you'd like

It's possible to replace the line:
u root 0 "Super User" /root

with
u root 0 "Super User" {{ROOT_HOME_DIRECTORY}}

and set ROOT_HOME_DIRECTORY as '/root' by default

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

The systemd version you checked that didn't have the feature you are asking for

250.5-r0

[poettering]

Uh, I am not convinced. That's a really bad idea, given that /home/ is a late boot mount usually.

I am not convinced we should allow this. If people want this they can make /root a symlink or bind mount, or patch this downstream.

But I am absolutely not convinced that we should support this as first class concept, because it#s inherently a bad idea, I am sure, and we shouldn't make bad ideas easy.

[Louson]

I agree with you for most standards distribution.

However, the yocto manual says:

ROOT_HOME ??= "/home/root"
This default value is likely used because some embedded solutions prefer to have a read-only root filesystem and prefer to keep writeable data in one place.

And I also agree to that.

I am not convinced it worth to support that it systemd (I also don't know how much work would that be). It's good to have your point of view.

Thanks,
Louis

[poettering]

Well, the root user is really the only user you shold be able to log into safely even if /home cannot be mounted. Which is a property that is a lot more important than the writability.

Anyway, note that te above is just about a fallback in case your /etc/passwd got lost. I am pretty sure that even if yocto wants to do its own thing, it can do so easily by just populating /etc/passwd the way it wants.

Anyway, closing this, as I am sure this is really not desirable.