Web Server User Identity and File Permissions

The embedded-webserver-config command enables you to enable the embedded web server, identify the user that you want to run the embedded webserver as, specify a password for that user, and so on. Enabling the web server means that it is automatically started by the engine-start command, which is typically integrated into your system's startup and shutdown process on systems where Watson™ Explorer Engine is used. These system startup and shutdown processes typically run as the root user on Linux systems and as an Administrator on Microsoft Windows systems. Configuring the embedded web server to run as a specified user enables the web server to be started by a privileged user but execute as another user. This is the standard execution model for popular web servers such as the Apache web server.

When following this execution model, the user that you configure the embedded webserver to run as must have sufficient privileges to access the files and directories in your Watson Explorer Engine installation. Therefore, after configuring the embedded webserver, you must make the specified user the owner of the files and directories in your installation or add that user to file and directory ACLs so that they can write to and create files in your installation directory.