Cfxtrjtrk

I am on Ubuntu 18.10, running under vmware and unable to start the nginx service - I get the error "nginx.service: Can't open PID file /run/nginx".

I have compiled nginx from source using passenger. It went ok on one machine, but trying it in my vm I cannot start the nginx service. It gives the above error as it cannot open the PID file (or create it?). I have done systemctl enable & start and it hangs.

I have used the /etc/sytemd/system/nginx.service script as follows:

[Unit]

Description=The NGINX HTTP and reverse proxy server

After=syslog.target network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target



[Service]

Type=forking

PIDFile=/run/nginx.pid

ExecStartPre=/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx -t

ExecStart=/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx

ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID

ExecStop=/bin/kill -s QUIT $MAINPID

PrivateTmp=true



[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

I have tried substituting /var/run for /run and it gives the same error.

There is no reference to the PID in the nginx.conf (and I don't think there needs to be?).

Could anyone give me any pointers on how to troubleshoot or fix this please?

Is /run available? Can you cd into /run and touch a file?

cd /run && touch hello.txt && ls -lash

If not that probably means that you want nginx to put the PID file in a location that is not available. You can do 2 things;

1. Figure out why /run is not available (probably tmpfs configuration)


2. Put the PID file somewhere else, for example /tmp

I have an answer in the sense of how to fix this, but I will leave it open for a bit so someone may comment on WHY this is so.

I changed the PID line so the PID file was written to the log folder of the installed nginx folder (/opt/nginx/logs). Anwhere else and it would REFUSE to write the PID file!!!

[Unit]

Description=The NGINX HTTP and reverse proxy server

After=syslog.target network.target remote-fs.target nss-lookup.target



[Service]

Type=forking

PIDFile=/opt/nginx/logs/nginx.pid

ExecStartPre=/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx -t

ExecStart=/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx

ExecReload=/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID

ExecStop=/bin/kill -s QUIT $MAINPID

PrivateTmp=true



[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

I have no idea what the reason for this behaviour is and it would be great if some Ubuntu Linux expert could tell me why it wouldn't write the PID anywhere else, including the normal run location /run and /var/run (or even tmp) for example, as is normal in all quoted startup scripts for the program. I think this only happens when it is created from source.