System Cleanup: Disabling Unused Core Services
Problem
The system journal was cluttered with "Unit is masked" errors and PAM (Authentication) failures. This was caused by systemd-homed and systemd-resolved being hard-masked while other system components (NetworkManager and PAM) were still trying to "poke" them.
Solution
Transitioned from Masking to Disabling to provide a "Silent Inactive" state, and updated configuration files to stop the system from looking for these services.
1. Systemd Service State
Masking is too aggressive for core services. Disabling them allows the system to acknowledge their existence without starting them.
Commands:
Bring them back from /dev/null
sudo systemctl unmask systemd-homed systemd-resolved
Ensure they do not start at boot
sudo systemctl disable systemd-homed systemd-resolved
PAM (Authentication) Cleanup
To stop sudo and login processes from looking for encrypted home directory support, the homed module must be silenced in the PAM stack.
File: /etc/pam.d/system-auth
Action: Comment out all lines containing pam_systemd_home.so.
# -auth [success=2 default=ignore] pam_systemd_home.so
# -account [success=1 default=ignore] pam_systemd_home.so
# -password [success=1 default=ignore] pam_systemd_home.so
# -session optional pam_systemd_home.soTo ensure NetworkManager doesn't attempt to use systemd-resolved as a DNS backend:
File: /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/no-resolved.conf
Content:
[main]
dns=default
systemd-resolved=falseWhen running pacman -Syu, look out for .pacnew files for:
/etc/pam.d/system-auth
/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
If a .pacnew appears, merge the new Arch defaults but ensure the systemd-homed lines in PAM remain commented out and the NetworkManager dns=default setting remains active. Verification
After updates, the following should show inactive (dead) with no red error text:
systemctl status systemd-homed systemd-resolvedPosted
12:27 09-05-2026