Ubuntu – How to run the Thin server as a different user on Ubuntu

thinUbuntu

I run an Ubuntu 10.04 VPS which hosts 2 Thin processes running Ruby On Rails behind Nginx. I control the Thin processes via a /etc/init.d startup script as a regular user. In my Thin config file I specify:

user: www-data
group: www-data

And in my Thin logs, when I start the server, I see

>> Changing process privilege to www-data:www-data

Good sign. Problem is when I run ps -ef my Thin processes are running as the user I login as — the user I run /etc/init.d/thin start as.

How can I get the Thin processes started as www-data:www-data when I run /etc/init.d/thin start as the user I log into the server as?

Best Answer

You can use sudo to run a command as any user:group with these options:

sudo -u www-data -g www-data /etc/init.d/thin start

-u sets the www-data user and -g sets the www-data group

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