On RedHat 7 and 8, when I run eDir with a non-root instance, I've been using a SystemD unit file like this:

[Unit]
Description=IDM-VAULT eDirectory
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
User=svc_edir
Group=svc_edir
ExecStart=/opt/novell/eDirectory/bin/ndsmanage startall
ExecStop=/opt/novell/eDirectory/bin/ndsmanage stopall
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

In this case, svc_edir is the non-privileged user I'm running my eDir instance as.  This works just fine on RedHat 7 and 8.  However, on SLES 12 SP5, I can't get this to work no matter what I do. I get an error when the ndsmanage command is executed:

---

Server instances management utility for NetIQ eDirectory 9.2.1 v40202.00
Instance at /etc/opt/novell/eDirectory/conf/nds.conf.....
Starting NetIQ eDirectory server...
Failed to connect to bus: No such file or directory

---

I've tried everything I can find for that error.  I found this TID which talks about a similar problem running ndsmanage:

https://support.microfocus.com/kb/doc.php?id=7023281#

But that did not fix this issue. I've tried adding these commands to the user's .profile, .bashrc, and .bash_profile:

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/`id -u`
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=${XDG_RUNTIME_DIR}/bus"

But that doesn't seem to make any difference.

I also tried using systemctl --user, which allows non-root users to launch SystemD services.  I put a slightly different unit file in /home/svc_edir/.config/systemd/user

[Unit]
Description=IDM-VAULT eDirectory
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/opt/novell/eDirectory/bin/ndsmanage startall
ExecStop=/opt/novell/eDirectory/bin/ndsmanage stopall
Restart=on-failure
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

This works if I run it from a shell as the user svc_edir, but it doesn't work right on boot.  When I reboot the server, it somehow runs svc_edir's instance as root and kinda makes a mess. I have to kill ndsd to stop it.

I'm not an expert on SystemD, but I believe this problem has something to do with dbus, but I'm not sure what.  

Can anyone that knows more about SystemD shed some light?

Thanks.

Matt