Subj : Question about file ownership after restart and possible login delay
To   : Winzlo
From : Digital Man
Date : Fri Apr 24 2026 10:30 am

  Re: Question about file ownership after restart and possible login delay
  By: Winzlo to All on Fri Apr 24 2026 08:58 am

 > Hi all,
 >
 > I've been doing some testing on my Synchronet 3.21 system under Linux, and I
 > ran into something I'm not entirely sure I'm interpreting correctly. I
 > wanted to run it by the group in case I'm misunderstanding expected
 > behavior.
 >
 > My setup is a fairly standard one where Synchronet starts as root (to bind
 > to low ports) and then drops privileges to the sbbs user.
 >
 > While troubleshooting an unrelated login delay, I noticed that after
 > restarting the BBS using sudo, a couple of files ended up owned by root:
 >
 > - /sbbs/data/msgs/0001.msg
 > - /sbbs/data/error.log
 >
 > When those files are owned by root, logging in (especially as user #1)
 > introduces a noticeable delay during the logon process. Once I change
 > ownership back to sbbs:sbbs, the delay goes away immediately.
 >
 > That made me wonder a couple things:
 >
 > - Is it expected that these files might be created or touched before the
 > privilege drop occurs?
 > - Or should they normally end up owned by the runtime user (sbbs) even after
 > a restart?
 > - Is there a recommended way to avoid this situation when restarting (for
 > example, a preferred service method)?
 >
 > It's entirely possible I'm missing something about the startup sequence, so
 > I figured I'd ask before digging further in the wrong direction.
 >
 > Really appreciate any insight.

I don't recommend running sbbs under sudo. Fix the file ownerships and use the 
setcap target instead (see https://wiki.synchro.net/howto:linux_non-root for 
details) and run as the 'sbbs' (or equivalent user) - never root.
-- 
                                            digital man (rob)

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