Varnish service not starting due to Error: Cannot create working directory

Written by Claudio Kuenzler - 0 comments

Published on June 29th 2023 - Listed in Varnish Linux

After switching from the free Varnish Cache to Varnish Enterprise (a.k.a. Varnish-Plus) version, there were still two Varnish shown on a Ubuntu server:

root@ubuntu:~# dpkg -l|grep varnish
rc  varnish                                6.0.5-1~bionic
ii  varnish-plus                           6.0.11r3-1~jammy

The varnish package is the open source package, which was removed when varnish-plus (Varnish Enterprise) was installed. However the package was not purged yet. Let's purge the removed varnish package so our dpkg list only shows the active Varnish package:

root@ubuntu:~# apt-get purge varnish

But after doing this, the Varnish service(s) cannot be started anymore and show the following error:

root@ubuntu:~# systemctl restart varnish-instance
Job for varnish-instance.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status varnish-instance.service" and "journalctl -xeu varnish-instance.service" for details.
root@ubuntu:~# journalctl -xeu varnish-instance.service
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: Opening environment 'mse'
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: Environment 'mse' opened successfully
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: Error: Cannot create working directory '/var/lib/varnish/varnish-instance/': No such file or directory
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: Error: Cannot create working directory (/var/lib/varnish/varnish-instance/): Success
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: (-? gives usage)
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu varnishd[2755]: Cannot create working directory '/var/lib/varnish/varnish-instance/': No such file or directory
Jun 29 11:53:51 ubuntu systemd[1]: varnish-instance.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION

By purging the Varnish Cache package (varnish), the working directory /var/lib/varnish was removed. The problem? Both free Varnish Cache and the licensed Varnish Enterprise packages use the same path as working directory.

To fix this, we can reinstall the varnish-plus package. This re-creates all the default configuration files and needed directories:

root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install --reinstall varnish-plus
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/6,400 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 147421 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../varnish-plus_6.0.11r3-1~jammy_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking varnish-plus (6.0.11r3-1~jammy) over (6.0.11r3-1~jammy) ...
Setting up varnish-plus (6.0.11r3-1~jammy) ...
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/varnish.service -> /lib/systemd/system/varnish.service.

Starting the Varnish instance(s) now works again:

root@ubuntu:~# systemctl restart varnish-instance
root@ubuntu:~# systemctl status varnish-instance
- varnish-instance.service - Varnish Instance varnish-instance
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/varnish-instance.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-06-29 11:54:50 CEST; 12s ago
[...]

Add a comment

Comments (newest first)

No comments yet.