Mongrel users - Feb 2008 - Mongrel won''t start as user nobody

Hi all,

My mongrel cluster runs perfectly if I allow it to run as root, but whenever
I try to change things to nobody/nobody my mongrels refuse to start and the
following shows up in the mongrel logs.   I have checked all the relevant
file permissions and "nobody" should be able to access everything
needed.

** Starting Mongrel listening at 127.0.0.1:9000
** Initiating groups for "nobody":"nobody".
** Changing group to "nobody".
** Changing user to "nobody".
** Starting Rails with development environment...
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in
`gem_original_require'': no such file to load -- /usr/local/lib/ruby/
gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.2.6/lib/initializer (LoadError)
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
custom_require.rb:27:in `require''
        from /opt/csw/apache2/share/htdocs/apps/boffable_development/
trunk/config/boot.rb:30
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require''
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
custom_require.rb:27:in `require''
        from /opt/csw/apache2/share/htdocs/apps/boffable_development/
trunk/config/environment.rb:12
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require''
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
custom_require.rb:27:in `require''
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.3/bin/../
lib/mongrel/rails.rb:147:in `rails''
         ... 8 levels...
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.3/bin/../
lib/mongrel/command.rb:212:in `run''
        from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.3/bin/
mongrel_rails:281
        from /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails:19:in `load''
        from /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails:19

My mongrel-cluster.yml looks like this:

user: nobody
cwd: /opt/csw/apache2/share/htdocs/apps/trunk
port: "9000"
environment: development
group: nobody
address: 127.0.0.1
servers: 3

Things work perfectly if I comment out the user and group lines.

Thanks for any ideas.
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Check to see if the user nobody can run ''gem list''. I saw
errors
similar to this from some gems installed with too restrictive
permissions. 

Quoting Andrew Ohnstad <andrew.ohnstad at
gmail.com>:
> Hi all,
> 
> My mongrel cluster runs perfectly if I allow it to run as root, but
whenever
> I try to change things to nobody/nobody my mongrels refuse to start and the
> following shows up in the mongrel logs.   I have checked all the relevant
> file permissions and "nobody" should be able to access everything
needed.
> 
> ** Starting Mongrel listening at 127.0.0.1:9000
> ** Initiating groups for "nobody":"nobody".
> ** Changing group to "nobody".
> ** Changing user to "nobody".
> ** Starting Rails with development environment...
> /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in
> `gem_original_require'': no such file to load --
/usr/local/lib/ruby/
> gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.2.6/lib/initializer (LoadError)
>         from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/
> custom_require.rb:27:in `require''
>         from /opt/csw/apache2/share/htdocs/apps/boffable_development/
> trunk/config/boot.rb:30