Make systemd hide other users' processes and kernel internals with ProtectProc=invisible and ProtectKernelTunables
domain: systemd · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Add ProtectProc=invisible to the [Service] section to mount /proc read-only with hidepid=invisible so the service only sees its own processes (needs User= or DynamicUser= to take effect)
Pair with ProcSubset=pid to hide non-process files in /proc for the strictest posture (rarely needed)
Add ProtectKernelTunables=yes to make /proc/sys, /sys, /proc/sysrq-trigger, /proc/latency_stats, /proc/acpi and /proc/irq read-only, and ProtectKernelLogs=yes to block reading the kernel log ring buffer (dmesg)
Add ProtectKernelModules=yes to prevent loading/unloading kernel modules, and ProtectControlGroups=yes to mount /sys/fs/cgroup read-only
Because ProtectProc= implies MountAPIVFS=, systemd mounts a fresh /proc and /sys in a private mount namespace
Restart and verify from inside the service: ps aux should list only its own processes, and cat /proc/kmsg or dmesg should be denied
Ensure User=<name> or DynamicUser=yes is set, otherwise ProtectProc= has no effect on visibility
Known gotchas
ProtectProc=invisible requires a dedicated User= or DynamicUser=yes - without it systemd logs a warning and the /proc hiding silently does not apply
ProtectProc= requires a relatively modern kernel (>= 5.8 for hidepid=invisible) and systemd >= 247
ProtectKernelModules=yes interacts with legitimate module autoloading - services that trigger module insertion (e.g. for tun devices) will fail
These options imply private mount namespaces; if the service needs shared IPC (/dev/shm) verify it is still mounted, otherwise pass --property to override
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