Apply the full systemd sandboxing profile to a long-running service (ProtectSystem, ProtectHome, NoNewPrivileges, PrivateTmp) so it cannot modify host files or require root
domain: systemd · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Create a unit /etc/systemd/system/<name>.service with Type=exec for long-running processes so systemd waits for execve to succeed
Add User= and Group= (or DynamicUser=yes) to drop from root; use DynamicUser=yes when the service needs an ephemeral uid with no static account
Add ProtectSystem=strict to make /usr, /boot, /etc read-only, and ProtectHome=yes to hide /home, /root, /run/user
Add PrivateTmp=yes (private /tmp and /var/tmp), PrivateDevices=yes (private /dev with only null/zero/random/tty), and NoNewPrivileges=yes to block setuid escalation
Add ProtectKernelTunables=yes, ProtectKernelModules=yes, ProtectControlGroups=yes, ProtectKernelLogs=yes to read-only-protect /proc/sys, /sys, /sys/fs/cgroup and block dmesg
Run systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl enable --now <name>.service, then systemctl status to confirm active
Audit with systemctl cat <name>.service and systemd-analyze security <name>.service --offline=false to review the exposure score
Known gotchas
ProtectSystem=strict makes the entire filesystem read-only except /dev, /proc, /sys and your StateDirectory/CacheDirectory/LogsDirectory/RuntimeDirectory (use ReadWritePaths= to open specific dirs)
ProtectHome=yes provides no access to /home and /root at all (values: yes=unmounted, read-only=mounted ro, tmpfs=empty writable tmpfs)
NoNewPrivileges=yes cannot be combined with AmbientCapabilities= or with user namespaces that need to regain privileges; services that need setuid helpers will fail
File permissions under /tmp may change when using PrivateTmp: use RuntimeDirectory= under /run instead of hardcoding /tmp paths
Some options (User=/ProtectProc=) require the kernel > 4.14 and systemd >= 240-247; verify your distro's systemd version with systemctl --version
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