Start PHP-FPM with root option automatically

Question

I was trying to get PHP-FPM running a pool as root, but I can't seem to adjust the init.d startup params.

It works when starting PHP-FPM from the CLI (with sudo php-fpm7.0 -DRy /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf, but I can't get this to work with the service command (sudo service php7.0-fpm (re)start. So Everytime the server reboots, PHP-FPM fails and I would have to run this command.

I have tried to place a file "php-fpm7.0" in /etc/default with the line DAEMON_ARGS="--daemonize --fpm-config $CONFFILE -R", and I even tried add the -R parameter to the do_start function in /etc/init.d/php7.0-fpm directly, but I keep getting the please specify user and group other than root error.

Is there any way I can get this working on startup and with the service command?

---

Off topic: I know all the risks and I know why I shouldn't do it, but I want to anyway. I need to run some scripts to create directories, performing chown commands etc. and the pool will be dedicated to a backend used by an nginx server block which is reachable from within the private 192.168.1.X network only on one specific URL path.

As an alternative I could set up a cron script which executes a PHP script as root, but that approach would cost me a lot more hours.

Answer 1

On systemd systems, you may have to configure this via systemd rather than system V init scripts

The below steps are tested and working on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. And this is your culprit for redirected init scripts:

/lib/lsb/init-functions.d/40-systemd

1. Edit your php-fpm pool configuration e.g. /etc/php/7.0/fpm/pool.d/www.conf and configure root as the user/group as root

; Unix user/group of processes
; Note: The user is mandatory. If the group is not set, the default user's group
;       will be used.
user = root
group = root

2. Edit /lib/systemd/system/php7.0-fpm.service and append -R to the ExecStart variable to allow the service to run as root

ExecStart=/usr/sbin/php-fpm7.0 --nodaemonize --fpm-config /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf -R

3. Reload the configuration

$ systemctl daemon-reload

4. Start the service

$ systemctl start php7.0-fpm

5. Check it out

$ ps auwx | grep php
root     32061  0.0  0.0 221680 26084 ?        Ss   16:59   0:00 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf)
root     32063  0.0  0.0 221680  4992 ?        S    16:59   0:00 php-fpm: pool www
root     32064  0.0  0.0 221680  4992 ?        S    16:59   0:00 php-fpm: pool www

Answer 2

I finally found a solution. It turned out Ubuntu was using systemd to start and restart PHP-FPM and was therefor ignoring the init.d files.

If you experience issues with adjustments to init.d files being ignored and you're on Ubuntu 15.04 or later, big chance that service has a systemd service file as well.

---

So the fix for my problem: My system has a file named /lib/systemd/system/php7.0-fpm.service, which is used by systemd. With the command cat /lib/systemd/system/php7.0-fpm.service you can see the content of the service file. You replace php7.0-fpm.service with the name of your service file. PHP7.0-FPM's service file looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=The PHP 7.0 FastCGI Process Manager
Documentation=man:php-fpm7.0(8)
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=notify
PIDFile=/run/php/php7.0-fpm.pid
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/php-fpm7.0 --nodaemonize --fpm-config /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf
ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR2 $MAINPID

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

In my case I needed to adjust the ExecStart rule. We don't have to edit this file, because systemd offers a way to override specific rules. The command sudo systemctl edit php7.0-fpm.service will open up an editor where you can enter those rules. Just enter the section(s) of the rule(s) you want to adjust and save the file. In my case it looks like this:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/php-fpm7.0 --allow-to-run-as-root --nodaemonize --fpm-config /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php-fpm.conf

Make sure to reset the rule you want to edit first, otherwise both rules will be executed. Also make sure to run sudo systemctl daemon-reload after saving this file. In my case running pools as root is now allowed on Ubuntu 16.04.