Arch Linux

Systemd since 233 ignores unit files it expects to be symlinks but aren't. This means that any unit dependencies (e.g. some_unit.wants/something.service) must be symlinks. Before 233 it did not matter.

When this happens, it is reported in the systemd journal like this:

Sep 05 15:46:50 archlinux systemd[1]: foo.target: Wants dependency dropin /etc/systemd/system/foo.target.wants/bar@baz.service is not a symlink, ignoring.

When mkinitcpio creates the initramfs it COPIES (it uses 'install -D') the files given in the FILES block. Any of those which are symlinks in the filesystem will become regular files in the initramfs due to this copy.

I have manually created a "cpio" (by extracting and repacking) that does contain symlinks and that does work fine.

What is needed is for mkinitcpio to copy symlinks as-is (without dereferencing), or a way to specify symlinks that should not be dereferenced separately from files.

Additional info:
* mkinitcpio 23-1
* systemd 234.11-8
* This changed in version 233 of systemd, I think the related commit is 1f9e5cf 5/feb/17 to file src/core/load-dropin.c

Steps to reproduce:

* Add a custom systemd unit SYMLINK to /etc/systemd/system/<something>.wants
* Add that symlink to the FILES section of mkinitcpio.conf
* Do a mkinitcpio
* Boot
* The aforementioned unit will be ignored (as reported in the journal)