# Trouble starting Mongrel under user:group mongrel:mongrel **URL:** \ **Category:** Deployment\ **Created:** [August 27, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124 "2007-08-27T21:14:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dxk3355)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124/1 "2007-08-27T21:14:08Z")
Hi! I’m trying to start mongrel, but this time as user mongrel: mongrel\_rails start --user mongrel --group mongrel Result is: \*\* Ruby version is not up-to-date; loading cgi\_multipart\_eof\_fix \*\* Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000 \*\* Changing group to mongrel. \*\* FAILED to change user:group mongrel:mongrel: Operation not permitted Ruby: 1.85, Rails: 1.2.3, Mongrel: 1.01, Ubuntu: 6.06 I added Mongrel user with: adduser --system --group --no-create-home mongrel Thank you for helping me, David ---
**Author:** ![dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dxk3355)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124/2 "2007-08-27T21:23:18Z")
I ran into something similar a few weeks ago. I ended up running my mongrel with www-data instead of mongrel as the user/group since that’s what my nginx runs as. (not sure if that’s bad… anyone?) Regarding the ruby version, I updated my installation to 1.8.6 manually: [http://codersifu.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-install-ruby-in-ubuntu-edgy-610.html](http://codersifu.blogspot.com/2007/03/howto-install-ruby-in-ubuntu-edgy-610.html) [http://www.urbanpuddle.com/articles/2007/08/17/mongrel-cluster-1-0-2-and-ruby-1-8-5](http://www.urbanpuddle.com/articles/2007/08/17/mongrel-cluster-1-0-2-and-ruby-1-8-5) cheers, Vince On 8/27/07, D. Krmpotic [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > \*\* Ruby version is not up-to-date; loading cgi\_multipart\_eof\_fix > > ## Thank you for helping me, David > > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/). > > > – support independent business – [http://www.buyindie.net/](http://www.buyindie.net/) ---
**Author:** ![dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dxk3355)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124/3 "2007-08-27T21:38:22Z")
On 8/27/07, D. Krmpotic [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m trying to start mongrel, but this time as user mongrel: > mongrel\_rails start --user mongrel --group mongrel > \*\* FAILED to change user:group mongrel:mongrel: Operation not permitted A process needs to start under root to be allowed to change their effective user id like this. So, try “sudo mongrel\_rails start --user mongrel --group mongrel”. – Alexey V. CruiseControl.rb [[http://cruisecontrolrb.thoughtworks.com](http://cruisecontrolrb.thoughtworks.com)] RubyWorks [[http://rubyworks.thoughtworks.com](http://rubyworks.thoughtworks.com)] ---
**Author:** ![dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dxk3355)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2007, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124/4 "2007-08-27T22:00:54Z")
OK, thank you. That made sense… I’ll see how everything goes with capistrano etc. Maybe there’ll be some problems because of this sudo… but I’ll find out soon enough… For now I have another question… It’s regarding stale PID files… the solution is here: [http://textsnippets.com/posts/show/931](http://textsnippets.com/posts/show/931) but I don’t know where exactly to add this… if I look at the patch - this line for example: “config = Mongrel::Rails::RailsConfigurator.new(settings) do”. It seems to me that this should exist in my file… right? And it doesn’t… I don’t want to apply this patch blindly (maybe it’s for different version than 1.01). And since I don’t know a whole lot about patches, I’d like to ask you how exactly do I do that… thank you! david Alexey V. wrote: > On 8/27/07, D. Krmpotic [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > I’m trying to start mongrel, but this time as user mongrel: > > mongrel\_rails start --user mongrel --group mongrel > > \*\* FAILED to change user:group mongrel:mongrel: Operation not permitted > > A process needs to start under root to be allowed to change their > effective user id like this. So, try “sudo mongrel\_rails start --user > mongrel --group mongrel”. > > – > Alexey V. > CruiseControl.rb [[http://cruisecontrolrb.thoughtworks.com](http://cruisecontrolrb.thoughtworks.com)] > RubyWorks [[http://rubyworks.thoughtworks.com](http://rubyworks.thoughtworks.com)] ---
**Author:** ![dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dxk3355](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dxk3355)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2007, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/trouble-starting-mongrel-under-user-group-mongrel-mongrel/113124/5 "2007-08-28T14:19:34Z")
forget it… it’s obvious… I had a problem because I must have done something wrong when searching for RailsConfigurator. bye, david