Running Emby as a different user

[vdrover 62]

I wanted to test running emby as a user different from the default `emby`. 

I edited emby-server.service to use a different user and restarted my server. But emby simply didn't work and so I reverted the change. 

If I want to continue testing this, is there something else to do to allow emby to run in addition to editing emby-server.service?

[mastrmind11 722]

i would imagine you'd have to change permissions on emby's system files to match whatever user you're trying to change to?

[vdrover 62]

I changed the permissions for the media library. The current permissions of /opt/emby-server is root:root. You think that should change? 

[mastrmind11 722]

Probably.  Unless your user is in the root group (which it shouldn't be).

[vdrover 62]

Didn't work unfortunately. Not sure it's possible. 

[nioxbe 1]

Emby is staring from root user

sudo systemctl status emby-server.service
● emby-server.service - Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/emby-server.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2023-08-06 07:01:26 BST; 1h 7min ago
   Main PID: 27235 (EmbyServer)
      Tasks: 15 (limit: 2176)
        CPU: 1min 13.875s
     CGroup: /system.slice/emby-server.service
             └─27235 /opt/emby-server/system/EmbyServer -programdata /var/lib/emby -ffdetect /opt/emby-server/bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /opt/emby-server/bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /opt/emby-server/bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3 -updatepackage emby-server-deb_{version}_armhf.deb

so we need to modify `unit-file`

# /lib/systemd/system/emby-server.service
[Unit]
Description=Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device
After=network.target

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/emby-server.conf
WorkingDirectory=/opt/emby-server
ExecStart=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-server
RestartForceExitStatus=3
User=dietpi  # <---- change your user from 'emby' by 'dietpi' in my case.

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

now, we need to change current folder permissions and restart server.

sudo chown -R dietpi:dietpi /var/lib/emby
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart emby-server.service
sudo systemctl status emby-server.service

I hope this helps