Service installation

HFS binary on Linux using a non‐privileged user

The process is quite straight-forward and it works on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS:

1. Create a new non-privileged user for hfs and create a directory to use as hfs' cwd:

sudo adduser --system hfs
sudo mkdir /var/lib/hfs

2. Move HFS deliverable files in system directories:

sudo mv hfs /usr/local/bin/
sudo mv plugins/ /var/lib/hfs/plugins

3. Change the owner of /var/lib/hfs:

sudo chown hfs:nogroup /var/lib/hfs 

4. Set capability to hfs executable to open low-numbered ports:

sudo setcap CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=+eip /usr/local/bin/hfs

5. Create systemd service unit as follows:

[Unit]
Description=HFS
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=hfs
Restart=always
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/hfs --cwd /var/lib/hfs

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

6. run sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable hfs && sudo systemctl start hfs && sudo systemctl status hfs