diff --git a/libcontainer/cgroups/systemd/user.go b/libcontainer/cgroups/systemd/user.go
index 9698e140f0a..8fe91688477 100644
--- a/libcontainer/cgroups/systemd/user.go
+++ b/libcontainer/cgroups/systemd/user.go
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ func DetectUID() (int, error) {
 	}
 	b, err := exec.Command("busctl", "--user", "--no-pager", "status").CombinedOutput()
 	if err != nil {
-		return -1, errors.Wrap(err, "could not execute `busctl --user --no-pager status`")
+		return -1, errors.Wrapf(err, "could not execute `busctl --user --no-pager status`: %q", string(b))
 	}
 	scanner := bufio.NewScanner(bytes.NewReader(b))
 	for scanner.Scan() {
diff --git a/rootless_linux.go b/rootless_linux.go
index 78d840dbab6..348f7c4ffca 100644
--- a/rootless_linux.go
+++ b/rootless_linux.go
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@ package main
 import (
 	"os"
 
+	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/cgroups/systemd"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/system"
+	"github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
 	"github.com/urfave/cli"
 )
 
@@ -28,6 +30,23 @@ func shouldUseRootlessCgroupManager(context *cli.Context) (bool, error) {
 		return false, nil
 	}
 	// euid = 0, in a userns.
+	//
+	// [systemd driver]
+	// We can call DetectUID() to parse the OwnerUID value from `busctl --user --no-pager status` result.
+	// The value corresponds to sd_bus_creds_get_owner_uid(3).
+	// If the value is 0, we have rootful systemd inside userns, so we do not need the rootless cgroup manager.
+	//
+	// On error, we assume we are root. An error may happen during shelling out to `busctl` CLI,
+	// mostly when $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is unset.
+	if context.GlobalBool("systemd-cgroup") {
+		ownerUID, err := systemd.DetectUID()
+		if err != nil {
+			logrus.WithError(err).Debug("failed to get the OwnerUID value, assuming the value to be 0")
+			ownerUID = 0
+		}
+		return ownerUID != 0, nil
+	}
+	// [cgroupfs driver]
 	// As we are unaware of cgroups path, we can't determine whether we have the full
 	// access to the cgroups path.
 	// Either way, we can safely decide to use the rootless cgroups manager.