How to stop Sonarr updates from reverting user and group in systemd

[Mean_Gene]

Sonarr version: 2.0.0.5225
Mono version: 5.12.0
Antergos Linux
Cinnamon 3.8.7
Kernel 4.17.5-1-Arch

I was running Sonarr 2.0.0.5225 and configured it to run as a specific user and group:

[Unit]
Description=Sonarr Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=gene
Group=users
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sonarr -nobrowser -data=/var/lib/sonarr
Type=simple
TimeoutStopSec=20
KillMode=process
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then 2.0.0.5228 came along and after the update, it reverted back to ‘sonarr’ for the user and group:

[Unit]
Description=Sonarr Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=sonarr
Group=sonarr
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sonarr -nobrowser -data=/var/lib/sonarr
Type=simple
TimeoutStopSec=20
KillMode=process
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

…needless to say, this totally busted everything but after simply editing the .service file and putting back in gene:users, I was back up and running. Is it normal for updates to revert those fields? Or should I send a message to the package maintainer on AUR to correct something?

OR, this is indeed normal and a workaround would be to stop using systemd and just call Sonarr from ‘Startup Applications’ via: /usr/bin/sonarr -nobrowser -data=/var/lib/sonarr

Thanks

[Taloth]

Well.
One, we don’t provide the Antergos Linux package, so I suggest you contact the package maintainer.
Two, you can have .override files in systemd to override specific fields instead of editing package-provided unit files.

[Mean_Gene]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Creating /usr/lib/systemd/system/sonarr.service.d/override.conf and in that file, I entered:

[Service]
User=roadhazard
Group=users

…restarted and all is well.

[HabsKilla]

Thanks for sharing the solution. I used this to fix the same issue I was having with PLEX.

Also,

sudo systemctl edit ‘service name’ will automatically create the override file for you.