F15: Questions re systemd

[R. G. Newbury]

> R. G. Newbury <newbury at mandamus.org> wrote:
>> >  New install of F15 on Thinkpad X61. Httpd refuses to start using:
>> >  systemctl enable httpd.service; systemctl start httpd.service
> Hmm, this works fine on my installation of F15.  'systemctl enable'
> redirects to 'chkconfig' because httpd uses systemd's SYSV
> compatibility, but both commands do what you expect.
>
>> >
>> >  User:group apache:apache exists and 'owns' /var/www
>> >
>> >  No httpd.service file was installed through yum. I created one containing:
> httpd still uses a SYSV initscript.  systemd is completely compatible
> with them for the moment.
>
>> >  **************************************
>> >  # httpd.service for systemd
>> >  # installed to /lib/systemd/system
> Please do not install or edit unit files in /lib/systemd.  Changes in
> that directory can be overriden by package updates.  Instead use
> /etc/systemd/system, either by creating new unit files in that
> directory or copying existing ones in /lib/systemd to /etc and editing
> them.  Unit files in /etc/systemd always override identically named
> ones in /lib/systemd.

Well *that* explains why there was no httpd.service file!. But it does 
not quite explain why 'status' reported a 'fail'. I will rsync the 
desktop F14 /etc/sysconfig/httpd and /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd files and 
see what happens then, when I run 'service httpd restart'


>> >  [Unit]
>> >  Description=httpd daemon
>> >  After=mysqld.service
> You probably want "network.target" in After too.  (Although presumably
> mysqld has that in its After too.)  If you use NetworkManager and bind
> httpd to particular IP addresses also add
> "NetworkManager-wait-online.service" to After as well, otherwise it
> might come up before it has a socket to bind to.

Since I do not need it, I'll delete this file. I'll wait for someone who 
*knows* what is going on the write one!


>> >
>> >  [Service]
>> >  EnvironmentFile=-/etc/sysconfig/httpd
>> >  ExecStart=/usr/sbin/httpd $OPTIONS -k start
>> >  ExecReload=/usr/sbin/httpd $OPTIONS -k restart
>> >  PIDFile=/run/httpd.pid
>> >  Type=forking
> This might be your problem:
>
>> >  User=apache
>> >  Group=apache
> httpd probably needs to be launched as root and allowed to drop
> privileges on its own.  (Don't quote me on this though; I don't know
> much about the internal workings of httpd.)

You could well be right. Httpd wants to own the files in /var/www/html 
etc. but since it is launched on boot, root would be the correct user to 
do that.


> One other thing that might affect it:  if you bind httpd to particular
> IP addresses, it might require the network to be active
>
>> >  [Install]
>> >  WantedBy=multi-user.target
>> >  ****************************************
>> >
>> >  I only get 'Job failed. See system logs and 'systemctl status' for
>> >  details'. ?[FAILED]
>> >
>> >  Status details are no help. I added OPTIONS=" -e 3 -E
>> >  /var/log/httpd/error_log -w" to /etc/sysconfig/httpd, which systemctl
>> >  status says it is executing, but I get NO error_log entries.
>> >
>> >  Moreover, I get NO systems logs of any sort from systemctl/systemd.
>> >
>> >  FIRST QUESTION: Where are the system logs? ?I do NOT have a
>> >  /var/log/messages file.... Do I need to set a logging option somewhere?
> systemd normally logs to syslog.  You really should figure out why
> syslog isn't working first.

SOLVED that bit. Somehow I chconfig'd OFF, the rsyslog daemon while 
turning off all the rpc stuff (it forwarded to systemctl)....Does sorta 
help!

> That being said, you can force systemd to log elsewhere with the
> "systemd.log_target=" kernel argument.  Set it to "kmsg" to log to the
> kernel message log or "console" to print errors on the console.  You
> can also set "systemd.log_level=debug" to get lots more output out of
> systemd.  More on these and a lot more at
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Systemd_problems
>
>> >  SECOND QUESTION: If I use '/usr/sbin/httpd -k start', it works and I get
>> >  httpd threads in the ps list.
>> >  Service httpd status, at that point, says that the start FAILED.
>> >  Service httpd stop does not actually stop anything, nor does systemctl
>> >  httpd.service stop. ?(Does not know the pid?)
> Exactly.  Systemd has no idea httpd was started, nor does it need to.
> It really shouldn't muck about with what the user didn't intend it to
> control.

Well yup! But I thought that it WAS controlling....What we have here is 
a failure to communicate, as someone once said!

-
              R. Geoffrey Newbury