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<base href="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/" />
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<th>Bug ID</th>
<td><a class="bz_bug_link
bz_status_NEW "
title="NEW - systemctl --user should allow to specify which user we want to query/update"
href="https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86727">86727</a>
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<th>Summary</th>
<td>systemctl --user should allow to specify which user we want to query/update
</td>
</tr>
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<th>Product</th>
<td>systemd
</td>
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<th>Version</th>
<td>unspecified
</td>
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<th>Hardware</th>
<td>Other
</td>
</tr>
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<th>OS</th>
<td>All
</td>
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<th>Status</th>
<td>NEW
</td>
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<th>Severity</th>
<td>normal
</td>
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<th>Priority</th>
<td>medium
</td>
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<th>Component</th>
<td>general
</td>
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<th>Assignee</th>
<td>systemd-bugs@lists.freedesktop.org
</td>
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<th>Reporter</th>
<td>mildred-bug.freedesktop@mildred.fr
</td>
</tr>
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<th>QA Contact</th>
<td>systemd-bugs@lists.freedesktop.org
</td>
</tr></table>
<p>
<div>
<pre>It should be possible as root to look at / update user units for selected
users. Especially since some of these users might not have tha ability to log
in at all (system-like users).
The use case that led to this bug report involves enabling and starting a user
unit for a 'pulseaudio' user running a 'pulseaudio.service' unit in order to
have a network sound server. The 'pulseaudio' user is set to have no password
(and this cannot login) and starts at boot because it was configured using
'loginctl enable-linger pulseaudio'
What I wanted to do was:
systemctl --user=pulseaudio enable pulseaudio.service
systemctl --user=pulseaudio start pulseaudio.service
systemctl --user=pulseaudio status pulseaudio.service
(but the --user option do not take an argument)
What I tried to do instead was:
sudo -u pulseaudio systemctl --user enable pulseaudio.service
sudo -u pulseaudio systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service
sudo -u pulseaudio systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
(or some other variation using 'su' or 'su -l' instead of 'sudo')
That didn't work because the XDG_RUNTOME_DIR was not set. This could have been
caused by either (or both):
* /etc/pam.d/{su,su-l,sudo} not using the pam_systemd.so module at all
* pam_systemd.so not setting the environment variable. I suggest you look at
bug reports like <a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=753882">https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=753882</a> or
<a class="bz_bug_link
bz_status_NEW "
title="NEW - libpam-systemd does not change XDG_RUNTIME_DIR when using su - username"
href="show_bug.cgi?id=70810">bug #70810</a>
What I ended up doing was something like:
su pulseaucio -c '
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
systemctl --user enable pulseaudio.service
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service
systemctl --user status pulseaudio.service
'
I don't loke it, especially setting the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR that was. This is
implementation specific and not portable. That's why I suggest you provide a
way to select the user session on the command line.</pre>
</div>
</p>
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