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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?

Luke
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4 Answers4

68

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).

HBruijn
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45

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.

Mark Stosberg
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4

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
daino3
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1

Run it as a system user in this case by default the service is running as root.

Umut
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