UNIX User Permissions

The Virtual Traffic Manager software must be started as root. This allows the “zeus.zxtm” process to bind to privileged ports (those below 1024). For example, port 80 (HTTP) is a privileged port. The Virtual Traffic Manager also uses superuser privileges to provide fault tolerance; these privileges are needed to raise and lower Ethernet interfaces.

The Virtual Traffic Manager processes that manage incoming traffic (in other words, untrusted input) relinquish superuser privileges after they have started. This part of the software runs with the UNIX user and group specified during installation. The Virtual Traffic Manager Admin UI service (zeus.admin) does use superuser privileges to manage configuration that is owned by the root user.

For details about the installation process, see the Virtual Traffic Manager: Installation and Getting Started Guide applicable to your product variant. If you are uncertain of the permissions of the Virtual Traffic Manager process, check which user owns the zeus.zxtm processes using the command “ps”, or by inspecting $ZEUSHOME/zxtm/global.cfg. The user is typically nobody, and the group nobody or nogroup.

To change the permissions, Ivanti recommends running the Virtual Traffic Manager "configure" script (ZEUSHOME/zxtm/configure) as the system superuser. For more details, see the Virtual Traffic Manager: Installation and Getting Started Guide applicable to your product variant.