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<p>Hi Stuart,</p>
<p>the proper solution is to grant read access to a group on these files (like 'admin' in debian) and add the collectd user to that group.</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote>
<div class="message_header"><span>Wed Apr 29 2015 15:08:25 EDT</span> <span>from "Stuart Cracraft" <smcracraft@me.com> </span> <span class="message_subject">Subject: [collectd] collectd restriction</span></div>
<div class="message_content">
<div>So, even though collectd runs by default as root,</div>
<div>none of its children can be so-configured, due to a decision</div>
<div>shown in:</div>
<div> </div>
<div> <a href="https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:Exec" target="webcit01">https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:Exec</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>which restricts Exec-based plugins to using uid!=0 as the</div>
<div>uid for the running collectors as children of collectd:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"The security concerns are addressed by forcing the plugin to check that custom programs are never executed with superuser privileges. If the daemon runs as root, you </span> <em style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">have to</em> <span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"> configure another user ID with which the new process is created."</span></div>
<div> </div>
<div>This is a half-hearted, strange attempt to draconianly</div>
<div>say "all uid=0" is bad and feels suspiciously nannyish, big-government.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>In fact, there are many commands which require root to</div>
<div>access protected files or devices and which do not have</div>
<div>non-Exec collectd-generic-support but constitute invaluable</div>
<div>information to have collected, graphed and alarmed on.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I am surprised at the above decision and am asking</div>
<div>the community how you collect root-accessible-only data</div>
<div>in collectd when there no plugin exec, nor otherwise, to collectd.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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