Getting logs from systemd unit into flat files and logstash

I ended up posting about the issue on the github page for the project, and I got quite a speedy response pointing me to another issue which came along with another init script, which I have now implemented. This seems to work correctly.

Thanks to TrevorH in the CentOS IRC channel for the assitance, as well as driskell on github for getting me to the new init script, I'll copy it below for reference in case anyone has the same problem I have with that script above:

#!/bin/bash
# chkconfig: 345 80 20
# description: Logstash Forwarder
# processname: logstash-forwarder
# config: /etc/logstash-forwarder
# pidfile: /var/run/logstash-forwarder.pid

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: logstash-forwarder
# Required-Start: $local_fs $network $remote_fs
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $network $remote_fs
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: start and stop logstash-forwarder
# Description: Logstash Forwarder
### END INIT INFO

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin

prog=logstash-forwarder
DAEMON=/opt/logstash-forwarder/bin/logstash-forwarder
pidfile=/var/run/$prog.pid
lockfile=/var/lock/subsys/$prog

# load defaults

[ -e /etc/default/$prog ] && . /etc/default/$prog
[ -e /etc/sysconfig/$prog ] && . /etc/sysconfig/$prog

DAEMON_ARGS="${DAEMON_ARGS:--config /etc/logstash-forwarder -spool-size 100 -log-to-syslog}"

start()
{
    echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
    nohup $DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS </dev/null >/dev/null 2>&1 &
    retval=$?
    pid=$!
    echo $pid > $pidfile
    if [ rh_status_q ]; then
        touch $lockfile
        success
        echo
    fi
    return $retval
}

stop()
{
    echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "
    killproc -p "$pidfile" $prog
    retval=$?
    [ -f "$pidfile" ] && rm -f $pidfile
    echo
    [ $retval -eq 0 ] && rm -f $lockfile
    return $retval
}

restart() {
    stop
    start
}

reload() {
    restart
}

force_reload() {
    restart
}

rh_status() {
    status -p $pidfile $prog
}

rh_status_q() {
    rh_status >/dev/null 2>&1
}

case "$1" in
    start)
        rh_status_q && exit 0
        $1
        ;;
    stop)
        rh_status_q || exit 0
        $1
        ;;
    restart)
        $1
        ;;
    reload)
        rh_status_q || exit 7
        $1
        ;;
    force-reload)
        force_reload
        ;;
    condrestart|try-restart)
        rh_status_q || exit 0
        restart
        ;;
    status)
        rh_status
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart|condrestart|try-restart|reload|force-reload}"
        exit 2
esac
exit $?

This has been modified slightly as the original script had .conf in the DAEMON_ARGS statement which wasn't needed on CentOS 5 or 6

EDIT

There were some issues with the init script, but the commiter has updated it today, for my instance I also needed either of the following files:

/etc/defaults/logstash-forwarder
/etc/sysconfig/logstash-forwarder

Content:

DAEMON_ARGS="${DAEMON_ARGS:--config /etc/logstash-forwarder/logstash-forwarder.conf -spool-size 100}" 

The correct way to generate paths in systemd is to use systemd-escape.

i.e.

~$ systemd-escape --path "/home/cobra/my service/start.sh"
home-cobra-my\x20service-start.sh

Yes / gets replaced with -