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Luke
Asked: 2016-10-03 03:41:01 +0800 CST

Configuring Systemd Service to run with root access

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I have a service in the form of a node.js application set up with Systemd on Raspbian Jessie and it is using its own user account. However, I am finding that the service does not run correctly because it does not have the necessary permissions. One of the node modules I installed requires root access. If I run the application manually with sudo everything works fine.

Is there a way to tell systemd to run the service with sudo?

linux service daemon systemd

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    tell systemd to run the service with sudo?

    sudo has nothing to with it.

    Typically you instruct systemd to run a service as a specific user/group with a User= and Group= directive in the [Service] section of the unit file.

    Set those to root (or remove them, as running as root is the default).

    • 51

  2. To clear, systemd system services run as root by default, but there is still a difference between the default behavior and running a system service with User=root.

    As documented in Environment variables in spawned processes, these variables are only set if User= is set:

    $USER, $LOGNAME, $HOME, $SHELL

    I tested to confirm this finding. So if you want to run a systemd service as root that needs one of the above variables, you need to set User=root.

    • 34

  3. a temporary solution, but got it to work in a pinch:

    /usr/bin/sudo /bin/bash -lc 'bundle exec rails server -e demo -p 80'

    Can run with a user who has sudo privileges in a systemd unit file like so:

    [Unit]
Description=Rails Webserver
After=syslog.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/webserver
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sudo /bin/bash -lc 'bundle exec rails server -e demo -p 80'
Restart=always
KillSignal=SIGQUIT

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
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  4. Run it as a system user in this case by default the service is running as root.

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