systemd-homed
systemd-homed is a systemd service providing portable human-user accounts that are not dependent on current system configuration.
It achieves portability by moving all user-related information into a storage medium, optionally encrypted, and creating an ~/.identity
file that contains signed information about the user, password, what groups they belong to, UID/GID and other information that would typically be scattered over multiple files in /
.
This approach allows not only for a home directory portability, but also provides security by automatically managing /home
encryption on login and locking the folder if the system is suspended.
Installation
systemd-homed is part of and packaged with systemd. The pambase package since version 20200721.1-2 comes with the necessary PAM configuration to allow systemd-homed user sessions.
However, you must enable and start the systemd-homed.service
.
Utilities
homectl
homectl
is the main utility you will use for homed. With it, you can create, update, and inspect users; their home directories; and their ~/.identity
files controlled by the systemd-homed(8) service.
The simplest usage of homectl is:
# homectl create username
This command will create a user with the specified username, a free UID in range 60001–60513, create a group with the same name and a GID equal to the chosen UID, set the specified user as its member, and set the user's default shell to /bin/bash
.
The home directory mount point is set to /home/username
. The storage mechanism is chosen in this order:
luks
if supported;subvolume
if LUKS is not supported and subvolume is supported;directory
if none of the above is supported and no other manual option is specified.
The image path for the LUKS mechanism is set to /home/username.home
. The directory path for the directory mechanism is set to /home/username.homedir
.
~/.identity
files are signed and must not be edited directly with a text editor as it will break the signature and render them invalid. Use homectl update --identity=/path/to/.identity
to modify it.userdbctl
A query tool used to inspect users, groups and group memberships provided by both classic UNIX mechanisms and systemd-homed.
Storage mechanism
LUKS home directory
A user home folder is stored in a Linux filesystem, inside an encrypted LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) volume inside a loopback file or any removable media. To use this mechanism provide --storage=luks
to homectl.
If you are using a removable media, make sure that these conditions are met:
- The image contains a GPT partition table. For now it should only contain a single partition, and that partition must have the type UUID
773f91ef-66d4-49b5-bd83-d683bf40ad16
. Its partition label must be the user name. - This partition must contain a LUKS2 volume, whose label must be the user name. The LUKS2 volume must contain a LUKS2 token field of type systemd-homed. The JSON data of this token must have a record field, containing a string with base64-encoded data. This data is the JSON user record, in the same serialization as in ~/.identity, though encrypted. The JSON data of this token must also have an iv field, which contains a base64-encoded binary initialization vector for the encryption. The encryption used is the same as the LUKS2 volume itself uses, unlocked by the same volume key, but based on its own IV.
- Inside of this LUKS2 volume must be a Linux file system, one of ext4, btrfs and XFS. The file system label must be the user name.
- This file system should contain a single directory named after the user. This directory will become the home directory of the user when activated. It contains a second copy of the user record in the
~/.identity
file, like in the other storage mechanisms.
fscrypt directory
A user home folder is stored the same way as when using the above method, but this time a native filesystem encryption is used. To use this mechanism provide --storage=fscrypt
to homectl.
Directory or Btrfs subvolume
A user home folder is stored in /home/username.homedir
and mounted to /home/username
using bind mount on unlocking. When this method is used no encryption is provided. To use this mechanism provide --storage=directory
or --storage=subvolume
to homectl.
CIFS server
Here, the home directory is mounted from a CIFS (Common Internet File System) server at login. Note that CIFS is implemented via the Samba protocol. Use --storage=cifs
on the homectl command line. The local password of the user is used to log into the CIFS service.
User record properties
You can view an entire user record with:
# homectl inspect username
You can modify or add to the user record with:
# homectl update username --property=VALUE
See homectl(1) for more options.
Managing users
Creation
Create a user with LUKS encryption:
# homectl create username --storage=luks
Create a user with fscrypt encryption (make sure that fscrypt is enabled on the file system):
# homectl create username --storage=fscrypt
Create a user with a specific UID, shell and groups:
# homectl create username --shell=/usr/bin/zsh --uid=60100 --member-of=wheel,adm,uucp
Other options can be found in homectl(1) § USER RECORD PROPERTIES.
Deletion
It is possible to delete several users at the same time, as root, you can run the command below to immediately delete 2 users:
# homectl remove username username2
Tips and tricks
Forget key on suspend
The suspend
option can be used with pam_systemd_home.so
entries in the files in /etc/pam.d/
to enable forget key on suspend. No session manager at the moment supports this feature. Furthermore, TTY sessions do not support the reathentication mechanism. So, when session managers start supporting this feature, the suspend option should only be enabled for them. Read pam_systemd_home(8) and the Linux-PAM System Administrators' Guide for more details.
SSH remote unlocking
systemd-homed encrypts your home directory using your password, so SSH configured for public key authentication cannot mount it or read authorized_keys
. A possible solution is to add authorized keys to your user record and require both public key and password for authentication. Add the following to sshd_config
:
AuthenticationMethods publickey,password AuthorizedKeysCommand /usr/bin/userdbctl ssh-authorized-keys %u AuthorizedKeysCommandUser root
Make sure that you have not disabled password authentication:
#PasswordAuthentication yes
Update your user record with your authorized keys using:
# homectl update username --ssh-authorized-keys=@/path/to/.ssh/authorized_keys
From now on, SSH will ask you to enter your password after completing key-based authentication. systemd-homed will use it to unlock and mount your home directory.
Troubleshooting
SDDM does not list users
See SDDM#One or more users do not show up on the greeter.