Gregory's Server
8️⃣ Here's the 8th post highlighting key new features of the upcoming v257 release of systemd.
A longer time ago systemd introduced JSON based user records as an extension of classic UNIX `struct passwd`. These records can be provided via Varlink IPC or via drop-in files. The much richer set of account settings is documented here:
These fields are consumed and acted on by systemd-logind, systemd-homed and other components of systemd.
One field is particularly interesting: it contains a field for the public SSH keys of an account (i.e. the stuff you traditionally find in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys). By making it part of the user record itself it can be accessed and used by SSH without access to the home directory of the user.