Re: only thing I ask
This is not a valid case because it can't happen, for several reasons. If your partition is encrypted and mounted automatically at boot (which would be extremely sloppy because whole-disc enc is always preferable and autodecrypting an unessential partition at boot is idiotic, but let's assume), then some sort of user input is to be expected (encryption key perhaps?) Errors will then be dully reported and the unencryption process will fail, which wil allow for corrective actions to be taken. But let's assume (again) that the user is idiotic and that there is no check on the decryption. Even then, you (not so) secure app will try to write to nonexistent directories... which is not allowed. You will get errors of the type "unable to write to /mnt/encrypted/tax_returns: not a directory" because you can't just write to a nonexistent directory structure, creating it on the fly. So your (not so) secret data will be safe, you'll be alerted to the problem, you can check dmesg, see the failed mount and fix the problem over ssh (because the server is up). Total time needed to fix : 5 minutes if you're slow.
With systemd's idotic behaviour, you need to get on site and fix the problem on a "cold" system (I had to rip the drive out). Total time may vary but is NOT short, and the server was down all the time, meaning that other services were also unavailable, for all users. Dumbest possible way to handle things.
All that because systemd assumes it knows better, and thinks it might possibly be unsafe to boot when I tell it to ("I'm sorry Dave" etc). Of course, to answer your precise question "What 'outsmarting', exactly, do you think is going on there?" : none. None at all. Because systemd is moronic. It /tries/ to outsmart the admin, but consistently fails.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
