In my case the issue is that if you delete /etc/machine-id, then journald will crash.
I tracked it down with strace. I would say it's a bug to crash if it's not available. 2016-10-21 16:39 GMT+02:00 Debian Bug Tracking System <ow...@bugs.debian.org>: > Thank you for the additional information you have supplied regarding > this Bug report. > > This is an automatically generated reply to let you know your message > has been received. > > Your message is being forwarded to the package maintainers and other > interested parties for their attention; they will reply in due course. > > Your message has been sent to the package maintainer(s): > Debian systemd Maintainers <pkg-systemd-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org> > > If you wish to submit further information on this problem, please > send it to 793...@bugs.debian.org. > > Please do not send mail to ow...@bugs.debian.org unless you wish > to report a problem with the Bug-tracking system. > > -- > 793116: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=793116 > Debian Bug Tracking System > Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems
