Enable systemd-homed support by default

[dylanmtaylor]

Integrates a patch to enable systemd-homed unconditionally across the GNOME stack. This involves:

• Enabling -Dcreate_homed=true in accountsservice.
• Removing malcontent dependencies and disabling parental controls from gnome-control-center, gnome-initial-setup, and gnome-software.
• Configuring the live generator to set DefaultStorage=subvolume for homed home directories.

This is a port of gnome-build-meta!2681.

Summary by CodeRabbit

New Features

• Added systemd-homed support enabling centralized home directory management and administration within GNOME OS.

Chores

• Updated GNOME build configurations across multiple components for systemd-homed integration.
• Disabled parental controls functionality.

[coderabbitai]

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

A new patch file adds systemd-homed support to the GNOME OS live build: accountsservice gains the -Dcreate_homed=true Meson flag; gnome-control-center, gnome-initial-setup, and gnome-software drop the malcontent dependency and related flags; gnome-initial-setup switches to a Git source on the homed branch; and the live ISO generator writes a /run/systemd/homed.conf.d/00-force-subvolume.conf drop-in forcing DefaultStorage=subvolume.

Changes

systemd-homed Support Patch

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Build element changes: homed enable, malcontent removal patches/gnome-build-meta/0003-homed-Add-systemd-homed-support.patch	Patch header declares modified files; accountsservice.bst adds -Dcreate_homed=true; gnome-control-center.bst and gnome-software.bst remove the malcontent dependency and build flag; gnome-initial-setup.bst switches source to a Git repo tracking the homed branch, drops malcontent, and disables parental controls.
Live ISO generator: homed.conf.d drop-in patches/gnome-build-meta/0003-homed-Add-systemd-homed-support.patch	generator.c adds a second FILE*, creates /run/systemd/homed.conf.d/, and writes 00-force-subvolume.conf with [Home]\nDefaultStorage=subvolume\n.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~10 minutes

Poem

A rabbit hops through /run/systemd/,
Digging subvolumes with glee 🐇
No malcontent to slow the way,
Just homed accounts here to stay—
DefaultStorage=subvolume, hooray! 🎉

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title 'Enable systemd-homed support by default' accurately summarizes the main objective of the changeset, which is to enable systemd-homed support across the GNOME stack.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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✨ Finishing Touches

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• Create PR with unit tests

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[github-actions]

This PR targets testing instead of main. Please retarget it to main — the testing branch is managed by the promotion pipeline and must not receive direct PRs.

[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@patches/gnome-build-meta/0003-homed-Add-systemd-homed-support.patch`:
- Around line 113-116: Add proper error handling to the homed configuration
creation code. First, check the return value of the fopen call (which creates
the file at /run/systemd/homed.conf.d/00-force-subvolume.conf) before calling
fprintf on it to prevent NULL pointer dereference. Second, change the mkdir
permissions from 0777 to 0755 for more restrictive directory permissions, and
check the mkdir return value to handle EEXIST errors for idempotency (this
allows the code to work if the directory already exists). Additionally, include
the errno.h header to enable proper error checking utilities for these system
calls.

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Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: b5c89439-14e8-44b8-9ecf-1a76ddb07951

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 73d9f70 and 8baa8d6.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• patches/gnome-build-meta/0003-homed-Add-systemd-homed-support.patch

[castrojo]

Hey @dylanmtaylor — sorry for the noise here. The next branch was heavily advanced with CI changes after you forked, which made your PR appear to remove ~30 workflow files. That's entirely CI drift, not your change.

Your actual contribution is exactly one file (patches/gnome-build-meta/0003-homed-Add-systemd-homed-support.patch) and it's clean.

I've opened #964 which is a cherry-pick of your patch onto the current next tip — same content, no noise. The original reviewers have been re-requested there.

This PR (#962) can be closed in favour of #964. Thanks for the contribution!

[github-actions]

This PR targets next instead of main. Please retarget it to main — the next branch is managed by the promotion pipeline and must not receive direct PRs.

[github-actions]

This PR targets next instead of main. Please retarget it to main — the next branch is managed by the promotion pipeline and must not receive direct PRs.

[hanthor]

Merge conflict on next branch — needs rebase. The systemd-homed patch itself is well-structured with clear upstream tracking and exit condition. CI validate passes. Please rebase and re-push.

[dylanmtaylor]

Merge conflict on next branch — needs rebase. The systemd-homed patch itself is well-structured with clear upstream tracking and exit condition. CI validate passes. Please rebase and re-push.

It didn't have a merge conflict earlier, but it looks like 963 was pushed straight to the next branch without my authorship? I'll rebase this anyways.

[github-actions]

This PR targets next instead of main. Please retarget it to main — the next branch is managed by the promotion pipeline and must not receive direct PRs.

[hanthor]

LGTM. Reviewed 2026-06-24.