#1125216 systemd-homed: polkitd (and others) fails to resolve group membership for systemd-homed users

Package:
systemd-homed
Source:
systemd-homed
Description:
home area manager
Submitter:
rslemos
Date:
2026-01-13 15:43:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1125216#5
Date:
2026-01-11 01:04:13 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

current "group" configuration of /etc/nsswitch.conf (group: files systemd) will
not correctly resolve group membership for systemd-homed users (for groups in
/etc/group).

For instance, polkit will look for members of group sudo, failing to note that
currently logged user (systemd-homed managed) is a member thereof.


Steps to reproduce:

    Create a user via homectl create <user> --member-of=sudo.

    `getent group sudo`

    The output will not list the user created in first step.


Workaround/Fix: Changing the group line in /etc/nsswitch.conf to use
[SUCCESS=merge] resolves the issue: "group: files [SUCCESS=merge] systemd"

After workaround, `getent group sudo` will list users reported by systemd.

I don't know if this is the correct fix for this issue though.