Couchbase user created on Linux as part of install

I just installed couchbase 4.0 on Linux RHEL 6.x and noticed that the install dir /opt/couchbase is owned by couchbase user and couchbase group. How is this usually handled? I installed it using a temporary root access. Once I lose root access, do I need sudo privileges to this couchbase user for stopping/starting the server or other admin tasks. As this point I dont wanna change the ownership or use chmod 777 for this. Plz advise.

Couchbase gurus - any comment on above?

Just happened to see this thread and checked my installation too. You are right a couchbase user does get created and assigned owner of the installation directory. The installation document doesn’t note this and I only happened to see this now after reading this thread. Just created a doc feedback requesting more details in the install guide https://issues.couchbase.com/browse/DOC-1011

Using a specific user for a particular application is pretty common behaviour - the principal of least privilege. For example it’s common to have a web server running under the http user.

You can administer this in number of different ways, as appropriate to your environment:

  1. Using sudo to give your normal user account to the couchbase user
  2. Give the couchbase user a password (but not a login shell), and then simply su to couchbase once you’ve authed to the system.
  3. Just use the root account for any administration.
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