What if multiple users have to manage that service?
Edit: nvrmnd, pretty sure the runnit solution won’t allow this either, your answer is correct. What about while the service is already running? Wouldn’t your solution require a restart?
If the service is already running it has to be stopped as a system service and run as a user service. In order to ensure that the service inherits all the correct permissions / acls / se linux policies the service needs to be launched from the limited permissions context.
With the systemd approach you’re not just passing a control handle around. You’re ensuring the process is running under an appropriate security context.
If you want to let multiple users manage the user systems service, I would probably go with sudo and systemd user files. You could create a group which has sudo access etc. The important idea is that an unprivileged user controls an unprivileged service.
What about this makes it “the systemd approach”? runit supports user services too. These are just two different tasks that are needed in different contexts. Sometimes what you need is to “pass a control handle around” to a privileged service. And sometimes you need to actually make a service unprivileged.
pretty sure the runnit solution won’t allow this either
I’m no expert, but I think you could make a special group, set the supervise directory to be owned by that group, and add all relevant users to that group? Either way, as I explained in a different reply, running the service as a user vs letting that user control a root service are completely different things, and one is not always a substitute for the other.
What if multiple users have to manage that service?
Edit: nvrmnd, pretty sure the runnit solution won’t allow this either, your answer is correct. What about while the service is already running? Wouldn’t your solution require a restart?
If the service is already running it has to be stopped as a system service and run as a user service. In order to ensure that the service inherits all the correct permissions / acls / se linux policies the service needs to be launched from the limited permissions context.
With the systemd approach you’re not just passing a control handle around. You’re ensuring the process is running under an appropriate security context.
If you want to let multiple users manage the user systems service, I would probably go with sudo and systemd user files. You could create a group which has sudo access etc. The important idea is that an unprivileged user controls an unprivileged service.
What about this makes it “the systemd approach”? runit supports user services too. These are just two different tasks that are needed in different contexts. Sometimes what you need is to “pass a control handle around” to a privileged service. And sometimes you need to actually make a service unprivileged.
I’m no expert, but I think you could make a special group, set the
supervisedirectory to be owned by that group, and add all relevant users to that group? Either way, as I explained in a different reply, running the service as a user vs letting that user control a root service are completely different things, and one is not always a substitute for the other.A generic stack overflow answer:
Do you REALLY need multiple users to manage that service? Maybe it’s better to have multiple instances of that service and… (This goes on and on)