Make running as non-root easier w/o breaking installations
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#5 Make running as non-root easier w/o breaking installations
This patch follows the #3334944 patch which offered to run subsonic as non root.
It was said hat this patch broke many installations as people do not know how to configure UNIX rights, or even don't know what those are (that's a pity I think...) but anyway I still think that subsonic should make running as non shoud be make easy.
So here is a slightly different patch which makes this possible by simply changing the init.d file.
Discussion
Anonymous
Patch: run as non root made easy
Your approach of setting up a user during service start has a major drawback of not being able to remove the user again if Subsonic is uninstalled. Besides, having to configure the user in the init-script isn't very Debianish, and I am not sure if /var/subsonic and anything below tmp/ are proper locations. I know Debian is quite bureaucratic at times but it makes sense occasionally. :)
What I'd propose is to ask during package installation (through, e.g., a standard Curse interface) what service user should be used (either root or someone non-privileged), create the user on-the-fly (if required), and store that information somewhere (/etc/default/subsonic might be a Debian-conform location for that). It's certainly more work to do that but offers Subsonic users to choose according to their needs in a guided fashion.
VIt7mv Very good blog article. Cool.