netbird
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netbirdio
systemd unit file improvements
Describe the problem
After a reboot, netbird fails to start using the systemd unit file netbird.service. Example of an error which is visible:
aug 11 12:48:14 hostname systemd[7480]: netbird.service: Failed to set up standard output: No such file or directory
I'm using a Ubuntu 23.04 system with netbird 0.22.3 (installed via apt).
To Reproduce
- Set up /var/log as RAM log with (for example) log2ram.
- Reboot the system
- View the error logs
Expected behavior No errors and a working netbird interface
Additional context
/var/log/netbird is created at a certain point, but was not synced to the persistent /var/log (if available). So effectively, after a reboot, the /var/log/netbird directory does not exist. This in turn means it cannot be used for stdout and stderr.
I tried creating it with an ExecStartPre using mkdir inside the unit file, but attaching the stdout and stderr apparently happens before that point and as such, errors with:
aug 11 12:49:36 hostname systemd[8997]: netbird.service: Failed at step STDOUT spawning /usr/bin/mkdir: No such file or directory
Proposed solution
Add this to the unit file, which ensures client.log can be created / updated:
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/mkdir /var/log/netbird
Remove the following lines, since that output should be captured inside of systemd (journalctl) anyway:
StandardOutput=file:/var/log/netbird/netbird.out
StandardError=file:/var/log/netbird/netbird.err
For future reference: the canonical way to fix this is to add:
CacheDirectory=netbird
ConfigurationDirectory=netbird
LogDirectory=netbird
RuntimeDirectory=netbird
StateDirectory=netbird
under the [Service] section.
systemd will then make sure to create the appropriate directories and give your service full access to them before starting the daemon:
/var/cache/netbird/etc/netbird/var/log/netbird/var/run/netbird/var/lib/netbird
It's not immediately obvious how to add this to netbird service install since netbird relies on a third-party (not really) package for its service management, and the Option field I see there does not "accept" these keys.
it's LogsDirectory not LogDirectory, also currently only State and Runtime directories are used?
