How to run multiple redis instances with systemd

Question

I recently moved to Debian 8 "Jessie" which now use systemd and I can't find a way to run multiple redis instances.

I found out there is a /lib/systemd/system/redis-server.service file to start redis-server on reboot. So I created a new file call /lib/systemd/system/redis-server-2.service with this content:

[Unit]
Description=Advanced key-value store
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
ExecStart=/usr/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis-2.conf
TimeoutStopSec=0
Restart=always
User=redis
Group=redis

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

But when I try to start the service like this: service redis-server-2 start I get this error:

Job for redis-server-2.service failed. See 'systemctl status redis-server-2.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details.

And systemctl status redis-server-2.service give me:

● redis-server-2.service - Advanced key-value store
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/redis-server-2.service; disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: start-limit) since Sat 2015-10-10 11:09:54 CEST; 33s ago
  Process: 2473 ExecStart=/usr/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis-2.conf (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 2371 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: redis-server-2.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: Failed to start Advanced key-value store.
Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: Unit redis-server-2.service entered failed state.
Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: redis-server-2.service start request repeated too quickly, refusing to start.
Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: Failed to start Advanced key-value store.
Oct 10 11:09:54 server101 systemd[1]: Unit redis-server-2.service entered failed state.

which is not really helping me.

But if I run /usr/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis-2.conf my redis instance start correctly.

So any idea why systemd don't what to start this instance by itself ?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Solution

Like suggested by Michael Hampton, I checked the syslog and found that:

Oct 10 11:33:46 server101 redis-server[1947]: *** FATAL CONFIG FILE ERROR ***
Oct 10 11:33:46 server101 redis-server[1947]: Reading the configuration file, at line 5
Oct 10 11:33:46 server101 redis-server[1947]: >>> 'logfile /var/log/redis/redis-server-2.log'
Oct 10 11:33:46 server101 redis-server[1947]: Can't open the log file: Permission denied

So I just had to do this to fix the issue:

chown redis:redis /var/log/redis/redis-server-2.log

Comments

[Michael Hampton]

Check your logs.

[Nicolas BADIA]

Damn, the answer was indeed in the syslog... thanks!