[systemd-devel] Restarting a service as user instead as root

[Michael Chapman]

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018, Cecil Westerhof wrote:
> I have a service that is run as a different user as root. But only root can
> restart the service. Is there a way to make 'systemctl restart' work for
> the user that runs the service?

You could simply add some Sudo rules allowing the user to perform that 
command.

Alternatively, you can write a polkit rule to describe the permissions. 
For example, the following would give permission for a particular 
user to restart a particular service:

    polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
        if (action.id == "org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-units" &&
            action.lookup("unit") == "example.service" &&
            action.lookup("verb") == "restart" &&
            subject.user == "username") {
            return polkit.Result.YES;
        }
    });

See the AUTHORIZATION RULES section of the polkit(8) manpage for further 
details.