[Packaging] systemd Service Unit Should Create a PID directory

[ralphct]

Kibana version:
kibana-4.5.2-1.x86_64
Server OS version:
Centos 7
Browser version:
n/a
Browser OS version:
n/a
Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, from source, etc.):
yum
Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior:
Kibana can (optionally, although maybe it should by default?) save out a PID file. The suggested location in the config file is /var/run/kibana.pid, but this is not writable by ordinary users. The usual solution is to create /var/run/kibana, chown it to the kibana user and then write the PID into it.

It's important to create this directory each time the service is started because on Redhat systems (and others) /var/run is emptied at system boot time, so any directories are lost.
Steps to reproduce:

1. Enable PID file generation in /opt/kibana/config/kibana.yml and point it to /var/run/kibana.pid
2. Restart kibana (systemctl restart kibana)
3. Observe the PID file is not created (or not updated)

Errors in browser console (if relevant):
n/a
Provide logs and/or server output (if relevant):
n/a

A solution is to add two ExecStartPre lines to the Service Unit file, making it:

[Unit]
Description=no description given

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p -m 0755 /var/run/kibana
ExecStartPre=/bin/chown kibana:kibana /var/run/kibana
User=kibana
Group=root
ExecStart=/opt/kibana/bin/kibana
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[fholzer]

There's actually a nicer way of doing this: simply add RuntimeDirectory=kibana (docs) in the [Service] section of the service file, then systemd will make sure the directory /var/run/kibana exists and the kibana user has write permission on it.

[tylersmalley]

@jbudz is this still relevant?

[jbudz]

Closed by #68262

[archon810]

As per #68262 (comment), this still seems relevant.

[archon810]

I totally forgot about #7759 (comment) by @fholzer above and came up with this approach that works:

systemctl edit kibana.service 
[Service]
ExecStartPre=+/bin/sh -c 'touch /var/run/kibana.pid; chown kibana.kibana /var/run/kibana.pid'

This way, any updates to kibana won't actually overwrite the systemd service file, and the pidfile is created and chowned. But then I saw the RuntimeDirectory solution and tested it, and of course it also worked. 🤦‍♂️

Nevertheless, systemctl edit kibana.service is an important piece of the puzzle.

At least now I don't have to wait till kibana resolves this properly.