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Status Functionality already exists
Workspace Instana
Categories Self Hosted
Created by Guest
Created on May 30, 2025

RELATED IDEAS

Instana run under a non-root after installation (Standard Edition)

Customer is expecting that all Instana processes should run under a non-root user after issuing stanctl up command. 

We were advice (by an Instana site reliability engineer) to do the following and if would solve the problem but it did not:

copy /root/.stanctl to /home/user/.stanctl and chown of all files to this user.

Do the same for the /root/.kube/ directory as well. 

 

‘stanctl up ‘ is configured within the systemd service. Please find the contents of systemd file below.

Like any other service, following command was executed as ‘root’ user, which should have start the service as ‘instana’ user.

systemctl start wbg-mws-instana.service

[root@HOSTmulti-user.target.wants]# cat wbg-mws-instana.service
[Unit]
After = network-online.target
Description = Instana Backend Service
Wants = network-online.target
 
[Service]
Type = oneshot
RemainAfterExit = yes
Restart = no
Environment = HOME=/home/instana
ExecStart = /usr/local/bin/stanctl up --air-gapped --env-file /opt/wbg_mws/instana/instana.env
TimeoutStartSec = 1800
ExecStop = /usr/local/bin/stanctl down --quiet
TimeoutStopSec = 600
User=instana
Group=instana
 
[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target
directory permi...
prcess ownershi...
directory permisions.png
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Idea priority High
  • Admin
    Marcelo Ibanez
    Nov 13, 2025

    Hi Madura,

    Instana Standard Edition can runs under a non-root user after installation. Here are a few important points:

    • You need to use a regular user with sudo privileges for the installation and management.

    • When using a systemd service, note that it does not set a default working directory. To ensure stanctl and cluster data are placed under the non-root user’s directory, use WorkingDirectory= to resolve the issue.


    // code placeholder

    [Unit]

    Description=Instana Backend Service

    After=network-online.target

    Wants=network-online.target[Service]

    Type=oneshot

    RemainAfterExit=yes

    Restart=no

    User=ubuntu

    Group=ubuntu

    WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu # Environment configuration

    Environment=HOME=/home/ubuntu

    Environment=USER=ubuntu

    Environment=LOGNAME=ubuntu

    Environment=PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin# Instana commands

    ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/stanctl up --env-file /home/ubuntu/instana.env

    ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/stanctl down --quiet

    TimeoutStartSec=1800

    TimeoutStopSec=600[Install]

    WantedBy=multi-user.target

    This ensures that when stanctl up runs as the non-root user, all related files and data are correctly located under that user’s directory.

    We have tested this approach and confirmed it works. We will also add this clarification to our documentation.

    Reply

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