Feature Request - running Serv-U FTP as non-root on Linux

(This is a feature request related to case 480573)

On Centos 6, we are running Serv-U and Serv-U-Gateway as a non-root user (_servu). This appears to be working fine, but we would prefer that Serv-U explicitly support this configuration.

In order to bind privileged ports (<1024), the Serv-U process must either run at least briefly as root, or have appropriate cap_net_bind_service capabilities set.

We are using a modified init script that uses the 'setcap' command to allow the process to bind privileged ports. Our modified 'start' section of the init script is:

    "$SERVERPATH/$SERVERNAME" -isrunning

    if [ $? -eq 1 ];

      then

        echo "Serv-U is already running"

      else

        echo "Serv-U is starting..."

        /bin/chmod 740 "$SERVERPATH/$SERVERNAME"

        /usr/sbin/setcap 'cap_net_bind_service=+ep' "$SERVERPATH/$SERVERNAME"

        /bin/su -l -s /bin/sh _servu -c "(cd \"$SERVERPATH\" && ./$SERVERNAME -startservice & 1>/dev/null 2>&1)"

        sleep 1

        "$0" status

    fi

I have attached our full init scripts.