Re: Manual start of user@<uid>.service failed with permission denied

Hi Belanger,

Thank you for your suggestion! I tried putting RuntimeDirectory= into the user@.service. I suppose I shouldn’t need to do this since the runtime directory should be fixed by the service user-runtime-dir@.service. Result is that it didn’t work.

Best regards,

Christopher Wong

From: Belanger, Martin <Martin.Belanger@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Monday, 11 December 2023 at 17:43
To: Christopher Wong <Christopher.Wong@xxxxxxxx>, Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Systemd <systemd-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [systemd-devel] Manual start of user@<uid>.service failed with permission denied

Have you tried using "RuntimeDirectory=" (and optionally "RuntimeDirectoryPreserve=")

Ref: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd.exec.html#RuntimeDirectory=

Regards,
Martin

From: systemd-devel <systemd-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Christopher Wong
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2023 10:28 AM
To: Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Systemd <systemd-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [systemd-devel] Manual start of user@<uid>.service failed with permission denied

[EXTERNAL EMAIL]
Hi Mantas,

I have added ExecStartPre to mailto:user@.service to run “id” and “ls -la”:

Dec 11 15:50:34 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[40287]: Will mount /run/user/1001 owned by 1001:118
Dec 11 15:50:34 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[40287]: Mounting tmpfs (tmpfs) on /run/user/1001 (MS_NOSUID|MS_NODEV "mode=0700,uid=1001,gid=118,size=99426304,nr_inodes=24274")...
Dec 11 15:50:34 host systemd[1]: Finished User Runtime Directory /run/user/1001.
Dec 11 15:50:34 host systemd[1]: Starting User Manager for UID 1001...
Dec 11 15:50:34 host id[40291]: uid=1001(ida) gid=118(ssh-users) groups=118(ssh-users),236(systemd-journal)
Dec 11 15:50:34 host ls[40293]: drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root            60 Dec 11 15:50 .
Dec 11 15:50:34 host ls[40293]: drwxr-xr-x   98 root     root          2120 Dec 11 15:30 ..
Dec 11 15:50:34 host ls[40293]: drwx------    2 root     root            40 Dec 11 15:50 1001
Dec 11 15:50:34 host systemd[40294]: systemd 254.7-2-g9edc143 running in user mode for user 1001/ida. (-PAM -AUDIT -SELINUX -APPARMOR +IMA -SMACK +SECCOMP +GCRYPT +GNUTLS +OPENSSL -ACL +BLKID +CURL -ELFUTILS -FIDO2 -IDN2 -IDN -IPTC +KMOD -LIBCRYPTSETUP +LIBFDISK -PCRE2 -PWQUALITY -P11KIT -QRENCODE -TPM2 +BZIP2 -LZ4 +XZ +ZLIB +ZSTD -BPF_FRAMEWORK -XKBCOMMON -UTMP -SYSVINIT default-hierarchy=unified)

The /run/user/1001 belongs to root with mode 0700. Should this belong to root? Is it because I manually start mailto:user@1001.service as root?
However, after mailto:user-runtime-dir@1001.service has finished it startup, the mailto:user@1001.service is started as uid=1001 and therefore can’t create any directories under /run/user/1001. Resulting in mailto:user@1001.service failed to start.

If I add “ExecStartPre=+chown %i /run/user/%i” to mailto:user@.service then it works! But I am unsure if this is really the way fix this.

Regarding the testing, I have done both restart of everything and manual, but the result is the same. Now that I have the “Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/%i” I no longer need to do “systemctl set-environment …”

Thank you for taking your time!

Best regards,
Christopher Wong

From: Mantas Mikulėnas <mailto:grawity@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, 8 December 2023 at 21:53
To: Christopher Wong <mailto:Christopher.Wong@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: Systemd <mailto:systemd-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [systemd-devel] Manual start of mailto:user@<uid>.service failed with permission denied
On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 6:53 PM Christopher Wong <mailto:Christopher.Wong@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Mantas,

I have from your suggestion done the following:

Putting the below in mailto:user@.service

[Service]
...
Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/%i
Environment=SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug

Putting the below in mailto:user-runtime-dir@.service

[Service]
...
Environment=SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug

Then I have disabled the global set-log-level debug (if this is also required, please let me know).

Unlike set-environment that's not global, it only affects pid1.

What I can see from the logs is that mailto:user-runtime-dir@1001.service seems to be started and mount /run/user/1001, but addition creation of directory under this mount is getting permission denied.

Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[1]: Created slice User Slice of UID 1001.
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[1]: Starting User Runtime Directory /run/user/1001...
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Bus n/a: changing state UNSET -> OPENING
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: sd-bus: starting bus by connecting to /run/dbus/system_bus_socket...
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Bus n/a: changing state OPENING -> AUTHENTICATING
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Bus n/a: changing state AUTHENTICATING -> HELLO
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a destination=org.freedesktop.DBus path=/org/freedesktop/DBus interface=org.freedesktop.DBus member=Hello cookie=1 reply_cookie=0 signature=n/a error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Got message type=method_return sender=org.freedesktop.DBus destination=:1.2536 path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=1 reply_cookie=1 signature=s error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Bus n/a: changing state HELLO -> RUNNING
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a destination=org.freedesktop.login1 path=/org/freedesktop/login1 interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties member=Get cookie=2 reply_cookie=0 signature=ss error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Got message type=method_return sender=:1.323 destination=:1.2536 path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=15 reply_cookie=2 signature=v error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Sent message type=method_call sender=n/a destination=org.freedesktop.login1 path=/org/freedesktop/login1 interface=org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties member=Get cookie=3 reply_cookie=0 signature=ss error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Got message type=method_return sender=:1.323 destination=:1.2536 path=n/a interface=n/a member=n/a cookie=16 reply_cookie=3 signature=v error-name=n/a error-message=n/a
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Bus n/a: changing state RUNNING -> CLOSED
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Will mount /run/user/1001 owned by 1001:118
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd-user-runtime-dir[36278]: Mounting tmpfs (tmpfs) on /run/user/1001 (MS_NOSUID|MS_NODEV "mode=0700,uid=1001,gid=118,size=99426304,nr_inodes=24274")...
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[1]: Finished User Runtime Directory /run/user/1001.
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[1]: Starting User Manager for UID 1001...
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: systemd 254.7-2-g9edc143 running in user mode for user 1001/ida. (-PAM -AUDIT -SELINUX -APPARMOR +IMA -SMACK +SECCOMP +GCRYPT +GNUTLS +OPENSSL -ACL +BLKID +CURL -ELFUTILS -FIDO2 -IDN2 -IDN -IPTC +KMOD -LIBCRYPTSETUP +LIBFDISK -PCRE2 -PWQUALITY -P11KIT -QRENCODE -TPM2 +BZIP2 -LZ4 +XZ +ZLIB +ZSTD -BPF_FRAMEWORK -XKBCOMMON -UTMP -SYSVINIT default-hierarchy=unified)
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/reg', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/dir', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/fifo', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/sock', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/chr', ignoring: Permission denied
Dec 08 17:33:29 host systemd[36280]: Failed to create '/run/user/1001/systemd/inaccessible/blk', ignoring: Permission denied

What's the ownership of /run/user/1001 and /run/user/1001/systemd after all of this?

Are you rebooting between tests or just manually starting it?

My current guess is that due to the earlier `systemctl set-environment`, some *other* thing that's running as root inherited the /run/user/1001 path and created root-owned directories there? That's the issue with setting global environment, it needs to be unset afterwards...

--
Mantas Mikulėnas