Setting system user home directory

Dmytro Bilokha dmytro at posteo.net
Sat Dec 16 18:53:25 UTC 2017


On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 10:48:34AM -0800, Kevin Oberman wrote:
>On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 9:04 AM, Dmytro Bilokha <dmytro at posteo.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 03:20:21PM +0100, Miroslav Lachman wrote:
>>
>>> Dmytro Bilokha wrote on 2017/12/16 14:59:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 01:44:05PM +0100, Miroslav Lachman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dmytro Bilokha wrote on 2017/12/16 10:40:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello, Everyone!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm trying to change www/payara port to make it run under the payara
>>>>>> user instead of root.
>>>>>> I've added the following line to the UIDs file:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> payara:*:221:221::0:0:Payara Application Server
>>>>>> user:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And this line to the port makefile:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> USERS=        payara
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also, I've made some another changes to the port's scripts to start
>>>>>> service under payara user.
>>>>>> Everything seems to be fine, but the service on start/shutdown creates
>>>>>> some preferences files,
>>>>>> caches, etc in the payara user's homedir.
>>>>>> The problem is, that it is impossible to create these files in
>>>>>> /nonexistent. This fact makes
>>>>>> service to show some annoying warnings on every startup/shutdown.
>>>>>> To make service to work properly I want to create directory writable by
>>>>>> the payara user and
>>>>>> set it as payara's homedir.
>>>>>> And I don't want to put these dir under the /usr/home/, it should be
>>>>>> somewhere in the application,
>>>>>> like /usr/local/payara-4.1.2.173/prefs.
>>>>>> As far as I understand, payara user will be created automatically by
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> bsd.port.pre.mk file included in the port's makefile. But, during
>>>>>> every
>>>>>> installation somehow payara user's homedir
>>>>>> should be changed. I can do it with the following one-liner:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /usr/sbin/pw usermod payara -d ${DATADIR}/prefs
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So, the questions are:
>>>>>> 1. Is it a proper way of doing such kind of things?
>>>>>> 2. Where in the port's makefile should I put my one-liner? Will it be
>>>>>> OK
>>>>>> to make it like this:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> .......head of the make file with setting variables and so on is
>>>>>> here......
>>>>>> .include <bsd.port.pre.mk>
>>>>>> do-install:
>>>>>>      .........doing some work here......
>>>>>>      @/usr/sbin/pw usermod payara -d ${DATADIR}/prefs
>>>>>> .include <bsd.port.post.mk>
>>>>>> ....end of the makefile.....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Many thanks for your attention and help.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't know Payara but applications should not write its files to
>>>>> /usr/local. This should work even if /usr/local is mounted Read Only.
>>>>> If you need to store configuration (preferences) then it should be in
>>>>> /usr/local/etc/payara.
>>>>> If the application writes some data files like databases, it goes under
>>>>> /var/db/payara and log in to /var/log/payara.log or /var/log/payara
>>>>> (directory)
>>>>>
>>>>> Miroslav Lachman
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the information. Now I'm a little bit confused.
>>>> I've checked and seems to me that nither www/tomcat85 (servlet
>>>> container) nor www/glassfish and java/wildfly10 (application servers)
>>>> ports follow this convention.
>>>> All of them has directories for logs, configuration and Java
>>>> applications under the
>>>> /usr/local. Is there something special in Java servers ports?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I know there are ports not following this convention (and I don't
>>> understand why). Those ports are making troubles if you want to serve
>>> /usr/local as read only NFS for example.
>>>
>>> Miroslav Lachman
>>>
>>
>> Ok, than I'll try to move everything writable from /usr/local to /var.
>> I plan to put system user's caches and properties to the
>> /var/payara/X.Y.Z/prefs,
>> where X.Y.Z is an application's version.
>> And this returns me to the first question: how to properly change user's
>> home
>> directory on port installation?
>>
>> --
>> Dmytro Bilokha
>> dmytro at posteo.net
>> +38-050-607-41-43
>>
>
>How did you add the user? If you did not use the adduser script or vipw,
>you must rebuild the database. pwd_mkdb. I would suggest always using vipw
>as it automatically does everything
>
>Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
>E-mail: rkoberman at gmail.com
>PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683

I've add following lines to the port's makefile:
USERS=		payara
GROUPS=		payara

And user is created automatically during port installation process.
-- 
Dmytro Bilokha
dmytro at posteo.net
+38-050-607-41-43


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