Bug 89864

Summary: MSG: Error message when working directory does not exist can be misleading
Product: systemd Reporter: Randy Barlow <rbarlow>
Component: generalAssignee: systemd-bugs
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: systemd-bugs
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux (All)   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:

Description Randy Barlow 2015-04-01 20:11:20 UTC 
If the WorkingDirectory directive in a unit is configured for a directory that does not exist, the error message that is printed is a little confusing to read.

For example, we have a systemd service template[0] that sets the working directory to /var/run/pulp/. If that folder does not exist when the unit is started, this is the error message that is printed:

Failed at step CHDIR spawning /usr/bin/celery: No such file or directory

I say "can be" misleading, because I see that technically it is saying that CHDIR failed *when* spawning /usr/bin/celery (which is correct). Unfortunately, it might read to some people[1] that /usr/bin/celery didn't exist, which can be confusing. I think it might be helpful if it instead told me that it could not find /var/run/pulp. Maybe something like this would be nice:

While spawning /usr/bin/celery, failed to chdir /var/run/pulp: No such file or directory

Thanks, and let me know if I can provide any more information!

[0] https://github.com/pulp/pulp/blob/e6ea3131796df60de3f7e3b98acc2ef108f517f7/server/pulp/server/async/manage_workers.py#L27-L38
[1] Like me ☺
Comment 1 Lennart Poettering 2017-10-27 18:10:20 UTC 
The message systemd 235 logs is this:

"foobar.service: Changing to the requested working directory failed: No such file or directory"

I think that should be clear and resolve the issue. Closing.

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