ServiceNow MID Server on a Raspberry Pi 5 (arm64)

Robert Elliott

08 Feb 2026 — 7 min read

There are some folks who have provided great resources and guidance on how to install and configure a MID server from various ServiceNow versions on various Raspberry Pi models. This is largely an update of the work they have done for a Pi 5 and a Zurich MID.

Steps

Get a Raspberry Pi. I went through these steps on a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB RAM and an SSD, running Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit), which is based on Debian 12 (Bookworm). CanaKit has some good options.
Consider setting up a firewall (such as ufw) on your Pi to restrict inbound traffic.
Set up your user in ServiceNow. Create a user, set a password, and assign the mid_server role.
Login to your Pi. If you’re not already in a terminal session, open one.
Verify your OS and architecture.

cat /etc/os-release
uname -m

For me, this is:

VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
aarch64 (ARM64)

Install Java 17. This can run alongside a later version of Java. Later versions cause SecurityManager issues with the MID. Don't update the system default java unless you want to screw up your Minecraft server. Run:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install openjdk-17-jre-headless

Confirm the Java 17 path is as expected.

ls /usr/lib/jvm/ | grep 17

You should see Java 17 directories listed.

Create a dedicated system user to run the MID server service. The command below creates the directory path /opt/servicenow and sets it as the home directory path for the new user. It also prevents interactive login.

sudo useradd -r -m -d /opt/servicenow -s /usr/sbin/nologin sn_mid

Because ServiceNow no longer provides wrapper files for ARM64 architecture, you'll need to retrieve a “donor” MID zip file that includes the wrapper files for ARM64. These were still provided as of Vancouver. Create directories for both the donor and the MID to be installed and assign ownership to the MID user.

sudo mkdir -p /opt/servicenow/{mid,donor}
sudo chown -R sn_mid:sn_mid /opt/servicenow

Switch to the new sn_mid user and retrieve the donor MID zip file.

sudo -u sn_mid bash
cd /opt/servicenow/donor
wget "<put the link to your mid zip here>"
unzip mid.*.linux.x86-64.zip

Confirm that the donor files include the required wrapper. You're looking for something like wrapper-linux-arm-64.

ls /opt/servicenow/donor/agent/bin | grep 'linux-arm-64'

Switch to the MID installation directory. Retrieve and unzip the current MID Server zip using the link from your ServiceNow instance (MID Server > Downloads). You'll probably need to scroll to the bottom of the page and check the checkbox for the link to appear.

cd /opt/servicenow/mid
wget "<put the link to your mid zip here>"
unzip mid.*.linux.x86-64.zip

Since we're not updating the system java to Java 17, pin the MID to Java 17. Since we didn't set a password for sn_mid, exit from sn_mid.

exit
sudo nano /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/conf/wrapper-override.conf

Uncomment the wrapper.java.command line and set it to the path for Java 17. You validated this above, so tweak this if needed from what I have here. Update your JVM heap size while you're here if you want (wrapper.java.maxmemory).

wrapper.java.command=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-arm64/bin/java

Save wrapper-override.conf and edit the JVM architecture configuration, updating set.SNC_JVM_ARCH.

sudo nano /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/conf/wrapper-jvm.conf

set.SNC_JVM_ARCH=aarch64

Save wrapper-jvm.conf and exit. Switch to the MID user again.

sudo -u sn_mid bash

Copy the ARM64 wrapper binary from the donor MID to the current MID.

cp /opt/servicenow/donor/agent/bin/wrapper-linux-arm-64 \
   /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/bin/

Create the expected wrapper symlink for the current architecture and switch back from mid_user.

cd /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/bin
ln -sf wrapper-linux-arm-64 wrapper-linux-$(uname -m)-64
exit

Copy the donor’s wrapper.jar to the current MID so it matches the version of the native wrapper executable.

sudo cp -a /opt/servicenow/donor/agent/lib/java-service-wrapper.jar \
           /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib/java-service-wrapper.jar

Copy the donor’s ARM wrapper native libraries into the current MID lib locations.

sudo cp -a /opt/servicenow/donor/agent/lib/libwrapper* \
           /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib/ 2>/dev/null || true

sudo mkdir -p /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib/aarch64
sudo cp -a /opt/servicenow/donor/agent/lib/aarch64/libwrapper* \
           /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib/aarch64/ 2>/dev/null || true

Ensure ownership is sn_mid (installer locked the tree).

sudo chown -R sn_mid:sn_mid /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib

Verify the required native library now exists where it should.

sudo find /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/lib -maxdepth 2 -type f -name 'libwrapper-linux-arm-64.so' -o -name 'libwrapper.so'

There's a problem file that gets created when the MID service starts that needs to be addressed. The comments on Jon Ulrich's article talk more about this. It may be related to a binary with a filename that's lengthier than allowed.

Add a script to delete this file before the service starts.

sudo nano /opt/servicenow/mid/clean-nonprintable.sh

Populate and save the script.

#!/bin/bash
python3 - <<'PY'
import os, string
root="/opt/servicenow/mid/agent"
allowed=set(string.ascii_letters + string.digits + " ._-@+,:()[]{}")
for name in os.listdir(root):
    path=os.path.join(root, name)
    if os.path.isfile(path):
        if any(ch not in allowed for ch in name):
            try:
                os.remove(path)
            except Exception:
                pass
PY
exit 0

Make the script executable.

sudo chmod +x /opt/servicenow/mid/clean-nonprintable.sh

Run the MID installer. Be sure when answering the questions to have the service run as sn_mid.

sudo /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/installer.sh

Configure the service to run the cleanup script prior to starting. Replace mid01 with your actual service name.

sudo systemctl edit mid01.service

Add and save:

[Service]
UMask=0022
ExecStartPre=/opt/servicenow/mid/clean-nonprintable.sh

Reload with your new configuration and restart the service. Replace mid01 with your actual service name.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart mid01.service

Verify the service and logs. Replace mid01 with your actual service name.

sudo systemctl status mid01.service --no-pager -l
sudo tail -n 120 /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/logs/wrapper.log
sudo tail -n 200 /opt/servicenow/mid/agent/logs/agent0.log.0

Validate your MID in ServiceNow!

Credits, References, and Links

See comments by tblevins, kristymerri, and lewismac (with a Vancouver MID link).