What does WARNING: without changing user mean in Neo4j?

Question

When I try to run my Neo4j database on Ubuntu 14.04, I see the message: WARNING: not changing user . What does this mean, is it important and how to overcome the warning?

A warning does not stop the server from starting.

Full conclusion:

 adam@ubuntu:~$ sudo service neo4j-service start Using additional JVM arguments: -server -XX:+DisableExplicitGC - Dorg.neo4j.server.properties=conf/neo4j-server.properties -Djava.util.logging.config.file=conf/logging.properties -Dlog4j.configuration=file:conf/log4j.properties -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow Starting Neo4j Server...WARNING: not changing user process [3699]... waiting for server to be ready..... OK. http://localhost:7474/ is ready. 

Answer 1

A warning (poorly worded) tells you that you are not starting neo4j as root. When launching neo4j in production, it is usually expected that the root user will start working with neo4j.

But during development, most people probably run neo4j on their local computer under their own user ID - and this should not be a problem.

Also note that neo4j uses the UID environment variable to determine the current user ID. At least in my case, echo $UID and sudo echo $UID return the same value. Therefore, you will still see a warning, even if you use sudo to run neo4j. However, if I use su to become the root user, echo $UID returns 0 (the root user ID), and neo4j does not display a warning.