[systemd-devel] Normal user can ask status of services

[Michael Biebl]

Am Sa., 26. Aug. 2023 um 09:44 Uhr schrieb Cecil Westerhof
<cldwesterhof at gmail.com>:
>
> I am at last implementing systemd timers. The service I created can have its status queried by a normal user. I thought I must have made a mistake. But when I do:
>     systemctl status cron
>
> I get:
>     ● cron.service - Regular background program processing daemon
>          Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/cron.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
>          Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-08-19 18:12:04 CEST; 6 days ago
>            Docs: man:cron(8)
>        Main PID: 790 (cron)
>           Tasks: 1 (limit: 17837)
>          Memory: 91.0M
>             CPU: 14min 3.110s
>          CGroup: /system.slice/cron.service
>                  └─790 /usr/sbin/cron -f
>
>     Warning: some journal files were not opened due to insufficient permissions.
>
> Is this the expected behaviour?
> If not: what could be wrong with my system?
>
> This is on Debian 11.

Reading system logs is a privileged operation.

You can grant this privilege to individual users by adding them to the
systemd-journal (or adm) group.

Adding users to the adm will grant them additional privileges, so be careful.