Nginx error log was huge, so I deleted and created a new one, now nginx won’t start

log-filesnginxUbuntu

I deleted the /var/log/nginx/error.log file, and then created a new one using:

sudo nano error.log

Doing ls -la shows that the error.log and access.log have the same permissions.

When I try and start nginx I get the error:

alert: could not open error log file: open()
"/var/log/nginx/error.log" failed permission denited.

Update

When trying to start nginx, I am also seeing:

emerg: /var/run/nginx.pid failed 13: permission denied.

Best Answer

This doesn't solve your problem, but in the future, if you do

cat /dev/null > /file/you/want/to/wipe-out

you will copy over the contents of the file with nothing, and keep all permissions in tact.

Not nginx-speicific, but Additionally, make sure you are running the application as the user it is supposed to run as. If you ever ran it as root, all the permissions are going to be owned by root, so other users won't be able to run it.

Related Solutions

Mysql – InnoDB: Error: log file ./ib_logfile0 is of different size

InnoDB is insanely picky about it's config; if something's not right, it'll just give up and go home. To make a change to the log file size without data loss:

Revert any config changes you've made to the log file size and start MySQL again.
In your running MySQL: SET GLOBAL innodb_fast_shutdown=0;
Stop MySQL
Make the configuration change to the log file size.
Delete both log files.
Start MySQL. It will complain about the lack of log files, but it'll create them and all will be well.

Nginx start failing, says error.log doesn’t exist

no it means some directory in absolute path to access log doesn't exist. nginx writes to logfiles from master process, usually running as root(if nginx was started by root). perhaps it's the main access log or a log of some other host, check that yourself by running

grep -n access_log /path/to/nginx.conf

or if you use default sites-* structure run that for all files in there. in fact I don't suggest using that scheme. when you'll suddenly need to alter settings for 200 sites you will have to edit 200+ config files :)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mysql – InnoDB: Error: log file ./ib_logfile0 is of different size

Nginx start failing, says error.log doesn’t exist

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