diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c7a338aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# Change Log
+All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
+
+## [Unreleased][unreleased]
+### Fixed
+- fix bug in Debian SysVinit, which caused starting of consul agent to fail.
+- fix bug in Debian SysVinit, which caused checking for the consul service status to return wrong results.
+
diff --git a/templates/consul.debian.erb b/templates/consul.debian.erb
index 08429bdf..724e39a3 100644
--- a/templates/consul.debian.erb
+++ b/templates/consul.debian.erb
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ DESC="Consul service discovery framework"
 NAME=consul
 DAEMON=<%= scope.lookupvar('consul::bin_dir') %>/$NAME
 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME/$NAME.pid
-DAEMON_ARGS="agent -pid-file ${PIDFILE} -config-dir <%= scope.lookupvar('consul::config_dir') %> <%= scope.lookupvar('consul::extra_options') %>"
+DAEMON_ARGS="agent -config-dir <%= scope.lookupvar('consul::config_dir') %> <%= scope.lookupvar('consul::extra_options') %>"
 USER=<%= scope.lookupvar('consul::user') %>
 SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
 
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ case "$1" in
     esac
     ;;
   status)
-      status_of_proc $DAEMON $NAME && exit 0 || exit $?
+      status_of_proc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON $NAME && exit 0 || exit $?
       ;;
   *)
     #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2