Unable to start services - "The UserName key is not supported for non-System services."

[daFish]

Since upgrading to OS X 10.11.5 I can no longer start services like httpd22.

brew services start httpd22 results in ==> Successfully started``httpd22``(label: homebrew.mxcl.httpd22) which is perfectly fine.

However, when inspecting the logs using syslog -k Sender com.apple.xpc.launchd I noticed the following entries:

May 27 09:48:22 name com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.httpd22) <Error>: The UserName key is not supported for non-System services.
May 27 09:48:22 name com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.httpd22[22553]) <Warning>: Service exited with abnormal code: 1

The .plist-file contains the section in question which was perfectly fine prior the update. Anyone experienced anything like that before?

[MikeMcQuaid]

I'm also on 10.11.5 and am not able to reproduce this. The UserName stuff should be cleaned up at some point but it's not what's causing this error. What happens if you run httpd22 manually? Smells like it could be a local configuration issue.

[daFish]

Running it manually works. This gets weirder and weirder.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@daFish I'm afraid this doesn't look like a Homebrew issue. If you can figure out a fix and create a PR then we'll consider it. Sorry!

[daFish]

Thanks, @MikeMcQuaid. I try to come up with a solution. However, I have the exact same issue on another machine running 10.11.5.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@daFish Try to remove the UserName key and then brew reinstall.

[daFish]

@MikeMcQuaid Still doesn't work. The UserName key is always readded when starting the service.

[daFish]

Starting the service with sudo works as expected.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@daFish You may also want to try and remove the relevant UserName code from brew services and see if that fixes it.

[MikeMcQuaid]

also CC @ilovezfs for thoughts.

[ilovezfs]

Perhaps they got stricter and made the incorrect usage an error instead of just ignoring it.

As a workaround, @daFish can you try opening brew-services.rb, and changing

    # Force fix UserName
    if !ServicesCli.root?
      if data =~ %r{<key>UserName</key>}
        # Replace existing UserName value with current user
        data = data.gsub(%r{(<key>UserName</key>\s*<string>)[^<]*(</string>)}, '\1' + ServicesCli.user + '\2')
      else
        # Add UserName key and value to end of plist if it doesn't already exist
        data = data.gsub(%r{(\s*</dict>\s*</plist>)}, "\n    <key>UserName</key>\n    <string>" + ServicesCli.user + "</string>\\1")
      end
    elsif data =~ %r{<key>UserName</key>}
      # Always remove UserName key entirely if running as root
      data = data.gsub(%r{(<key>UserName</key>\s*<string>)[^<]*(</string>)}, "")
    end

to

    if data =~ %r{<key>UserName</key>}
      data = data.gsub(%r{(<key>UserName</key>\s*<string>)[^<]*(</string>)}, "")
    end

[daFish]

@ilovezfs This worked and I was able to start the services without any problems.

[ilovezfs]

Cool. You may want to commit that change for now, since brew update will try to stash it otherwise.

cd /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-services
git add cmd/brew-services.rb
git commit -m "username go away please"

[MikeMcQuaid]

@ilovezfs Thanks! Would you or @daFish mind making a PR for that?

[ilovezfs]

@MikeMcQuaid Sure. Let's go with that as a workaround, clean up the formulae, and then drop the section entirely.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@ilovezfs Sounds good.

[daFish]

@MikeMcQuaid Done.