[SOLVED] Running a startup script as a user at boot once

Question

Hello!
So, as the title suggests, I am trying to start a script as a specific user at boot. To avoid accidentally starting it multiple times, I don't want it to run every time to user logs in. So far I've looked into creating a custom systemd service to call a script as root then using 'sudo -u user script' to run said script.
This almost worked, the script must have executed but, because it was starting a new task in a screen, it created a dead screen. Although I'm not entirely sure why (I suspect it has something to do with not running screen as the logged in user), I figured I would ask if anyone knew of a better way to do this. My solution so far is pretty convoluted.
Side notes: This is running on a GUI-less server (hence the possibility of a user logging in multiple times or having multiple sessions open at once)
Last edited by Lindenk (2013-07-09 15:33:45)

Answer 1

Sure,
Here's essentially the unit file -
[Unit]
Description=Runs a script to run a script to start a script to start a server
[Service]
ExecStart=/absolute/path/to/a/rootScript.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
And the root script
#!/bin/bash
#This script will run another script as the user 'server'
sudo -u server /path/to/userScript.sh
And the user script
#insert possible setup stuff here
screen -S serv -d -m /path/to/server/start.py
#insert possible cleanup stuff here
Also as a side note, I did already allow root to run commands as server without a password.
EDIT: Another side note, the root script and user script do in fact work as intended when started individually. When running through systemd (at boot or not), the screen created is dead.
Last edited by Lindenk (2013-07-09 14:36:54)