ProFTPD killed (signal 15) error - how to fix logrotate restart error?

cron logrotate proftpd
joelparkerhenderson picture joelparkerhenderson · May 15, 2014 · Viewed 24.8k times · Source

ProFTPD on Ubuntu is being killed unexpectedly.

Log message:

$ tail /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log.1
...
... ProFTPD killed (signal 15)
... ProFTPD 1.3.5rc3 standalone mode SHUTDOWN

Diagnosis: the time of the message is the same time that cron runs the logrotate command.

Google searches turn up various info about ProFTPD having a glitch on Debian-based systems due to log files, log rotations, and the ProFTPD server not restarting.

I will add a bounty for a solution to this. I've posted a workaround answer too, in case it's helpful for others.

Answer

joelparkerhenderson picture joelparkerhenderson · May 15, 2014

Here's a workaround solution thanks to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/proftpd-dfsg/+bug

The problem is due to ProFTPD not stopping in time to be restarted.

The workaround is to edit the service file, to add a retry. 

/etc/init.d/proftpd

Find this line:

start-stop-daemon --stop --signal $SIGNAL --quiet --pidfile "$PIDFILE"

Change to this:

start-stop-daemon --stop --signal $SIGNAL --retry 1 --quiet --pidfile "$PIDFILE"

This change solved it for me.

Suggestions for improvements are most welcome.

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