Re^3: How run a daemon as non-root user

Unless the programs the OP wants to run need root-permissions to do whatever it is they do, there isn't any need to run them as root. Daemonizing does not require root permissions in any sane system.

"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

Comment on Re^3: How run a daemon as non-root user

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Re^4: How run a daemon as non-root user by halfbaked (Sexton) on Dec 06, 2008 at 01:46 UTC
Well the pid is stored in /var/run and I can't put together the information to create a user like postgres or apache that can create a pid in /var/run other than root. I realize this is probably a silly question, so I can't imagine the answer would be too complicated. It's probably more of a OS issue than Perl, like I said I'm running Debian/Linux.	[reply]
Re^5: How run a daemon as non-root user by JavaFan (Canon) on Dec 06, 2008 at 02:26 UTC
Well, there are a couple of ways to solve this. Start the daemon as root, let it create the pid file, then drop the priviledges. Make /var/run group owned by the group 'daemons' (with group write permission). Start the deamon as a user that belongs to the group 'daemons'. Use file ACLs to allow the process to write to /var/run. Make /var/run world writable. Make a subdirectory in /var/run that's owned by the user running the daemon. Have the daemon use that subdirectory to write the pidfile into. (Any other directory works as well). You might consider putting a symlink from /var/run pointing to the new location. Create a (permanent) pidfile in /var/run that's owned by the user running the daemon. Let the daemon clear the pidfile when it exists upon removal. And where it currently associates a meaning to the (non-)existance of the pidfile, let it now associate a meaning to it being of (non-)zero size.	[reply]