Systemd – Redis Not Starting on Boot with Systemd but Works with Manual Start

redissystemdubuntu-16.04

I have installed redis on Ubuntu 16.04 according to the digialtocean guide. It uses systemd and should start on boot.

I can start redis from cli 

sudo systemctl start redis

and it works with no error or issue. However when I reboot, redis fails to start. I tried several things I found via googling, nothing worked so far:

  • setting Type=forking or Type=notify (or leaving it away entirely like in the guide)
  • Adding LimitNOFILE=65536 to get rid of an error (which it does but still fails to load)

There is no clear error in journalctl:

Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: Starting Redis In-Memory Data Store...
Lubuntu-16-04 redis-server[799]: 799:C 12 Jul 10:34:12.532 # oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo
Lubuntu-16-04 redis-server[799]: 799:C 12 Jul 10:34:12.532 # Redis version=4.0.10, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=799, just started
Lubuntu-16-04 redis-server[799]: 799:C 12 Jul 10:34:12.532 # Configuration loaded
Lubuntu-16-04 redis-server[799]: 799:C 12 Jul 10:34:12.532 * supervised by systemd, will signal readiness
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: Started Redis In-Memory Data Store.
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Unit entered failed state.
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: Stopped Redis In-Memory Data Store.

This block is repeated 5 times in the log and then at the end of the log this message appears:

Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: redis.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Lubuntu-16-04 systemd[1]: Failed to start Redis In-Memory Data Store.

In the redis log I see this:

Creating Server TCP listening socket 192.168.XX.XXX:6379: bind: Cannot assign requested address

I want to allow remote connection, that is why I also bind to "external" IP. Is this causing redis to fail startup? But it works fine when starting manually. What is causing the issue?

Best Answer

The systemd config needs to be changed and IMHO is wrong as shown on digitalocean.

The systemd unit configurations After target needs to be changed:

[Unit]
Description=Redis In-Memory Data Store
After=network-online.target

In the guide it is After=network.target which according to this guide has very little meaning, eg. the network is probably not yet fully ready and hence binding to external IP fails.

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