Cannot run Chromium as another user from the command line

Question

Chrome is available from the command line:

$ chromium --version
Chromium 108.0.5359.124 snap

But not for other users:

$ sudo su otherphil
$ chromium --version
/user.slice/user-1000.slice/session-3.scope is not a snap cgroup

In addition, in the error message above, 1000 is the id of philippe (the user who can use Chrome), not otherphil (the user trying to use Chrome).

Actually I can reproduce this issue on a fresh Ubuntu Server 22:

$ sudo apt install chromium-browser
(...)
$ chromium --version
Chromium 108.0.5359.124 snap
$ sudo adduser otherphil
(...)
$ sudo su otherphil
$ chromium --version
/user.slice/user-1000.slice/session-3.scope is not a snap cgroup

How can I make Chrome available for all users?

Answer 1

This is due to how sessions are managed. Login as otherphil directly through SSH works (instead of connecting as philippe, than sudo su otherphil) does the trick.

What works:

$ ssh philippe@myserver
$ chromium --version # Works

What doesn't work:

$ ssh otheruser@myserver
$ sudo su philippe
$ chromium --version # Error!

Originally answered here: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/not-a-snap-cgroup-error-when-running-chromium/33243/3?u=pbernard