# what user is used to call an external script ?

## javeree

I am currently running dovecot, and have written a service /etc/init.d/getmail that .... gets mail  :Smile:  at regular intervals.

I wanted to use a plugin fetchmail-wakeup https://github.com/marschap/fetchmail_wakeup and use it to call the script when  a client logs in. In the plugin configuration, I write 

fetchmail_helper = /etc/init.d/getmail restart

Now this doesn't work because the service can only be started by root, and obviously the plugin does not call the script as root. I wanted now to use sudo for the call, but then I need to know the userid or group that does the calling.

I tried to write a small script "whoami > /tmp/output", gave it +x rights and changed the plugin to 

fetchmail_helper = /my-whoami-script

I also get nothing from this, probably because the script runs as something like nobody and is not even allowed to write to tmp. 

What could I do to try and get info on the userid that this plugin uses ?

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