On Fri, 8 Mar 2019 15:46:26 +0100, Dr. wrote in message
<201903081546.27040.dr.klepp@???>:

> Anno domini 2019 Fri, 8 Mar 13:15:48 +0000
> Rowland Penny via Dng scripsit:
> > On Fri, 8 Mar 2019 13:47:40 +0100
> > Jaromil <jaromil@???> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > re all,
> > >
> > > any thoughts about this new systemd-made thing that freedesktop
> > > immediately "standardized" (whatever is their procedure for that,
> > > likely smoking cigars among old-boys or so)
> > > https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/machine-id.html
> > >
> > > its easy to replace by a script of course that's not the problem
> > > (the manpage suggests to use a systemd application for that, not
> > > a joke!) but I'm curious if anyone has some background and
> > > thoughts about this
> > >
> > > AFAIK chromium started checking it and its absence on Devuan
> > > Beowulf is reported as an error, so we may have to work around
> > > this.
> > >
> > > but first things first: do we want /etc/machine-id? and how?
> > >
> >
> > I would have thought the first question is 'What is it used for ?'
>
> Surveillance, nothing else. IMO it would be nice to regenerate it
> every time the file is read.

..my /etc/cron.d/machine-id:
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

# ..a new /etc/machine-id every minute... ;o)
* * * * * root date |md5sum |cut -d" " -f-1 >/etc/machine-id |tee
>/dev/null 2>&1

...keeps e.g. chromium from whining about:
"[20478:20478:0307/101807.205617:ERROR:browser_dm_token_storage_linux.cc(101)]
Error: /etc/machine-id contains 0 characters (32 were expected)"

..dunno too much about what else they use to track us though...


..those nefarious web browsers should run _only_once_, between the
boot-up of the throw-away virtual machine it lives in, and the shut
down and the throwing away of that throw-away virtual machine it
lived in.


> > I don't seem to have it and everything works without it.
>
> It's on my beowulf installations, and I didn't even know that it was
> there :-/

..quick starting point:
ll /proc/sys/kernel/random/boot_id /etc/hostid /etc/machine-id \
/var/lib/dbus/machine-id /var/db/dbus/machine-id


--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.