[systemd-devel] systemctl as non-root

[Andrei Borzenkov]

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 11:05 AM, Umut Tezduyar Lindskog
<umut at tezduyar.com> wrote:
>>> > On May 28, 2015 2:28 PM, <Aaron_Wright at selinc.com> wrote:
>>> >> I'm working on an embedded system, and I ran into a situation where
>>> >> a non-root user needs to runs systemctl, but when I try I get:
>>> >> ~ $ systemctl status
>>> >> Failed to get D-Bus connection: No such file or directory
>>> >>
>>> >> So, I try with the suid bit on systemctl set, but then I get:
>>> >>
>>> >> ~ $ systemctl status
>>> >> Failed to read server status: Operation not permitted
>>> >>
>>> >> My question is, is something broken, or is this expected behavior?
>>
>> If you do not use D-Bus daemon systemd will be listening on private
>> socket. In this case the only check it does is that peer runs as UID=0
>> (note - not EUID, so suid does not really help).
> I think with or without dbus systemd listens on the private socket
> (/run/systemd/private).

No, private socket is used only as fallback when full D-Bus is not available.