👀 Views: 443 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-13

systemd ubuntu permissions Python

I'm trying to debug I'm trying to set up a custom systemd service on my Ubuntu 22.04 server that runs a Python script. Despite following the official documentation, I'm working with a `permission denied` behavior when I attempt to start the service. My service file is located at `/etc/systemd/system/my_script.service` and looks like this: ```ini [Unit] Description=My Custom Script Service [Service] ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/user/my_script.py User=user Group=user Restart=on-failure [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target ``` I've made sure that the script is executable with the following command: ```bash chmod +x /home/user/my_script.py ``` However, when I execute `sudo systemctl start my_script`, I receive the following behavior in the journal logs: ``` Nov 03 12:00:00 myserver systemd[1]: Starting My Custom Script Service... Nov 03 12:00:00 myserver my_script[12345]: PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/user/my_script.py' Nov 03 12:00:00 myserver systemd[1]: my_script.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Nov 03 12:00:00 myserver systemd[1]: my_script.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. ``` I've also checked the permissions of the script and the directory: ```bash ls -l /home/user/ ``` Which shows: ``` drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Nov 1 10:00 user -rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 123 Nov 1 10:00 my_script.py ``` To ensure there are no SELinux or AppArmor restrictions causing the scenario, I ran `sudo aa-status` which shows that AppArmor is in enforcing mode. I even tried putting my service in a different directory like `/usr/local/bin/`, but the scenario continues. How can I resolve this permission denied behavior to successfully start my systemd service? This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. The stack includes Python and several other technologies. What's the best practice here? The project is a mobile app built with Python. Has anyone else encountered this?