The only update service we really need to guard like this is
systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service since if invoked manually might create
/var/run/nologin and thus blocking the user from login. The other
services are pretty much idempotent and don't suffer by this problem,
hence let's simplify them.
This new condition allows checking whether /etc or /var are out-of-date
relative to /usr. This is the counterpart for the update flag managed by
systemd-update-done.service. Services that want to be started once after
/usr got updated should use:
[Unit]
ConditionNeedsUpdate=/etc
Before=systemd-update-done.service
This makes sure that they are only run if /etc is out-of-date relative
to /usr. And that it will be executed after systemd-update-done.service
which is responsible for marking /etc up-to-date relative to the current
/usr.
ConditionNeedsUpdate= will also checks whether /etc is actually
writable, and not trigger if it isn't, since no update is possible then.
In order to support offline updates to /usr, we need to be able to run
certain tasks on next boot-up to bring /etc and /var in line with the
updated /usr. Hence, let's devise a mechanism how we can detect whether
/etc or /var are not up-to-date with /usr anymore: we keep "touch
files" in /etc/.updated and /var/.updated that are mtime-compared with
/usr. This means:
Whenever the vendor OS tree in /usr is updated, and any services that
shall be executed at next boot shall be triggered, it is sufficient to
update the mtime of /usr itself. At next boot, if /etc/.updated and/or
/var/.updated is older than than /usr (or missing), we know we have to
run the update tools once. After that is completed we need to update the
mtime of these files to the one of /usr, to keep track that we made the
necessary updates, and won't repeat them on next reboot.
A subsequent commit adds a new ConditionNeedsUpdate= condition that
allows checking on boot whether /etc or /var are outdated and need
updating.
This is an early step to allow booting up with an empty /etc, with
automatic rebuilding of the necessary cache files or user databases
therein, as well as supporting later updates of /usr that then propagate
to /etc and /var again.
Yu Watanabe