Arch Linux User Repository

I'll leave a note for those who are having trouble starting FAH after updating. You should do pacman -Rs foldingathome and install again. This will create the fah-client user.

I'll leave a note for those who are having trouble starting FAH after updating. You should do pacman -Rs foldingathome and install again. This will create the fah-client user.

Ok, so I did manually (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/DeveloperWiki:Building_in_a_clean_chroot) what aur-build does....no difference, no install message, directories owned by root.

I went ahead and manually added user/group fah-client, changed directory ownerships, and the service started fine.

@merlock aurutils is an AUR helper. Try the officially supported way and see if the issue persists.

@PlasticSoup: no install messages. Built in clean chroot, using only "aur-build" from aurutils, and standard pacman install (using custom repository).

@merlock Did you see the message after install about moving the config.xml? If so the .install file ran but the ownership didn't change. Did you install with an AUR helper? If so, maybe try a manual install.

@PlasticSoup: it seems like the install file didn't run. I don't have a fah-client user, and /etc/fah-client and /var/log/fah-client are owned by root.

ETA (21:35) clean rebuild and install. Above didn't change.

@andrezg The user (and group) fah-client is needed if you want to run fah-client from a systemd service. The program fah-client is will fail to run if any of it's files ( e.g. config dbase logs) are not owned by the user/group fah-client. The included service file is from upstream and I modeled the .install file for this package after upstream's official Debian/Fedora install scripts. If you want to just run fah-client without specifying directories for it to use, there isn't any issue with that I am aware of. From reading the projects documentation and GitHub issues this is all intentional behavior.

cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/fah-client.service

[Unit]
Description=Folding@home Client
After=network.target nss-lookup.target

[Service]
User=fah-client
ExecStart=/usr/bin/fah-client --config=/etc/fah-client/config.xml --log=/var/log/fah-client/log.txt --log-rotate-dir=/var/log/fah-client/
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/fah-client
Restart=always
StandardOutput=null
KillMode=mixed
PrivateTmp=yes
NoNewPrivileges=yes
ProtectSystem=full
ProtectHome=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Do we need a user fah-client? Also, when executing the ExecStart manually, the working directory is the current directory. If we need a fah-client user, i guess it needs permission for this directory?

@merlock Is the config.xml ownership set as "fah-client" for both the user and group? The fah software seems really touchy when it comes to permissions. Also have you rebooted or run "systemctl daemon-reload" after install? One or the other is needed to allow systemd to run the new service.

This isn't going to be an easy upgrade.

1st attempt to start, and the systemd unit failed.

I'll be trying to get it to work later tonight.

ETA: 2024-08-21 19:42 (EDT):

Still can't get the systemd service to start.

Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262827]: fah-client.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262827]: fah-client.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/fah-client: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 1.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262836]: fah-client.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262836]: fah-client.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/fah-client: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 2.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262839]: fah-client.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262839]: fah-client.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/fah-client: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262842]: fah-client.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262842]: fah-client.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/fah-client: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 4.
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262845]: fah-client.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 (h-client)[1262845]: fah-client.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/bin/fah-client: No such process
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
Aug 21 19:35:39 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Aug 21 19:35:40 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Aug 21 19:35:40 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Aug 21 19:35:40 Jammin1 systemd[1]: fah-client.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

config.xml was replaced at the new location (/etc/fah-client)

Note: Client does start straight from the command line, using the exec start command from the systemd unit.