9 Running agent as root

Starting with version 5.0.0 the systemd service file for Zabbix agent in official packages was updated to explicitly include directives for User and Group. Both are set to zabbix.

This means that the old functionality of configuring which user Zabbix agent runs as via zabbix_agentd.conf file is bypassed and agent will always run as the user specified in the systemd service file.

To override this new behavior create a /etc/systemd/system/zabbix-agent.service.d/override.conf file with the following content:

[Service]
       User=root
       Group=root

Reload daemons and restart the zabbix-agent service:

systemctl daemon-reload
       systemctl restart zabbix-agent

For Zabbix agent2 this completely determines the user that it runs as.

For old agent this only re-enables the functionality of configuring user in the zabbix_agentd.conf file. Therefore in order to run zabbix agent as root you still have to edit the agent configuration file and specify User=root as well as AllowRoot=1 options.

Zabbix agent

To override the default user and group for Zabbix agent, run:

systemctl edit zabbix-agent

Then, add the following content:

[Service]
       User=root
       Group=root

Reload daemons and restart the zabbix-agent service:

systemctl daemon-reload
       systemctl restart zabbix-agent

For Zabbix agent this re-enables the functionality of configuring user in the zabbix_agentd.conf file. Now you need to set User=root and AllowRoot=1 configuration parameters in the agent configuration file.

Zabbix agent 2

To override the default user and group for Zabbix agent 2, run:

systemctl edit zabbix-agent2

Then, add the following content:

[Service]
       User=root
       Group=root

Reload daemons and restart the zabbix-agent service:

systemctl daemon-reload
       systemctl restart zabbix-agent2

For Zabbix agent2 this completely determines the user that it runs as. No additional modifications are required.