Could not start backuppc service through puppet

Question

I have backuppc which is being handled by puppet and also using foreman. Below is my init.pp file :

class backuppc::service {
        if $::operatingsystemcodename == 'squeeze' {
                service { 'backuppc' : ensure => running, hasstatus => false, pattern => '/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC' }
        } else {
                service { 'backuppc' : ensure => running, hasstatus => true }
        }
        service { 'apache2' : ensure => running }
}

when I run puppet on node, it throws this reports on foreman :

class backuppc::service { if $::operatingsystemcodename == 'squeeze' { service { 'backuppc' : ensure => running, hasstatus => false, pattern => '/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC' } } else { service { 'backuppc' : ensure => running, hasstatus => true } } service { 'apache2' : ensure => running } }

change from stopped to running failed: Could not start Service[backuppc]: Execution of '/etc/init.d/backuppc start' returned 1: Starting backuppc...2016-05-31 17:13:25 Another BackupPC is running (pid 6731); quitting...

node is running with debain squeeze 6.0.10. any help on this ?

Marty Marty · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-01T03:50:21

This ...

change from stopped to running failed: Could not start Service[backuppc]: Execution of '/etc/init.d/backuppc start' returned 1: Starting backuppc...2016-05-31 17:13:25 Another BackupPC is running (pid 6731); quitting...

... means that puppet attempted to start BackupPC, with /etc/init.d/backuppc start, which found that the process was already running. This indicates that puppet is incorrectly determining the status of the BackupPC service.

I can't find a reference to a facter fact named operatingsystemcodename in the source. Does foreman provide this variable, or are you defining it elsewhere? Perhaps you meant lsbdistcodename instead?

If so, and $::operatingsystemcodename is undefined, your conditional will always fall through to the else branch, and the resource will be defined with hasstatus => true. Puppet will attempt to use /etc/init.d/backuppc status to check if the service is running. Therefore, if the init script's status action is broken in some way (by always returning a non-0 exit code, for example) puppet will attempt to start the service on every agent run.

So first things first, I'd verify that $::operatingsystemcodename returns 'squeeze' on the node in question.

If not, I'd check the exit code of /etc/init.d/backuppc status under its various states, returning zero when started and non-zero when stopped.

If on the other hand $::operatingsystemcodename is undefined, or some unexpected value, then I'd choose another expression to use in the if statement. In this case, you'll also want to verify that the pattern attribute is correct by inspecting the process table while the BackupPC service is running.

EDIT: Alternatively, you can provide a value for the status attribute, containing a custom command used by puppet to check the status of the BackupPC service. I would expect something like status => 'pgrep -f BackupPC to work well enough. Although, puppet is already doing almost exactly this in ruby code, so I wouldn't expect it to solve you problem.

While a bit dated this blog post covers some general tips for troubleshooting puppet.

Could not start backuppc service through puppet

1 Answers