Ulimit and make_sock errors

Question

I'm trying to configure Redmine for Ubuntu 11.10, using this method Redmine for 11.10 but ran into some crazy snag somewhere with apache. Upon issuing service apache2 restart I get the following errors.

 * Restarting web server apache2
ulimit: 88: error setting limit (Operation not permitted)
ulimit: 88: error setting limit (Operation not permitted)
(13)Permission denied: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs

I haven't been able to make heads or tails of what exactly is going on with apache. I understand what ulimit does (monitor system wide resource allocation) but don't know why setting the limit would not be permitted?

Here's the contents of /etc/apache2/sites-available/default, were the root of the problem might be...

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]

    DocumentRoot /var/www
    <Directory />
        Options FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
    </Directory>
    <Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
    <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

    # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
    # alert, emerg.
    LogLevel warn

    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"
    <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">
    Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128
    </Directory>

    # See 
    # http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html 
    # for details on what these options do.  They will lead to an increase
    # in memory usage, but significantly reduced access times.


    # Speeds up spawn time tremendously -- if your app is compatible. 
    # RMagick seems to be incompatible with smart spawning
    PassengerSpawnMethod smart


    # Keep the application instances alive longer. Default is 300 (seconds)
    PassengerPoolIdleTime 300


    # Additionally keep a copy of the Rails framework in memory. If you're 
    # using multiple apps on the same version of Rails, this will speed up
    # the creation of new RailsAppSpawners. This isn't necessary if you're
    # only running one or 2 applications, or if your applications use
    # different versions of Rails.
    RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 0

    # Just in case you're leaking memory, restart a listener 
    # after processing 5000 requests
    PassengerMaxRequests 5000


    # Only check for restart.txt et al up to once every 5 seconds, 
    # instead of once per processed request
    PassengerStatThrottleRate 5

    # Specify the minimum number of instances passenger can keep
    # while cleaning idle instances
    PassengerMinInstances 3

    <Location /redmine>
        Options Indexes -ExecCGI FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
        # AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        # mod_rails
        # PassengerUser redmine
        #RailsEnv edoceo_live
        RailsBaseURI /redmine

        # environment.rb
        # Redmine::Utils::relative_url_root = "/redmine"    
    </Location>

</VirtualHost>

# Then after the virtualhost is loaded, send it a request
# to initialize the redmine installation
PassengerPreStart http://2222.us/redmine

EDIT I got the error log working through some fluke, here is the errors that I am receiving inside error.log, this might provide some insight.

[Wed Dec 14 12:06:09 2011] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Wed Dec 14 12:06:10 2011] [error] *** Passenger could not be initialized because of this error: Unable to start the Phusion Passenger watchdog because its executable (/usr/lib/phusion-passenger/agents/PassengerWatchdog) does not exist. This probably means that your Phusion Passenger installation is broken or incomplete, or that your 'PassengerRoot' directive is set to the wrong value. Please reinstall Phusion Passenger or fix your 'PassengerRoot' directive, whichever is applicable.
[Wed Dec 14 12:06:10 2011] [error] *** Passenger could not be initialized because of this error: Unable to start the Phusion Passenger watchdog because its executable (/usr/lib/phusion-passenger/agents/PassengerWatchdog) does not exist. This probably means that your Phusion Passenger installation is broken or incomplete, or that your 'PassengerRoot' directive is set to the wrong value. Please reinstall Phusion Passenger or fix your 'PassengerRoot' directive, whichever is applicable.
[Wed Dec 14 12:06:10 2011] [notice] Apache/2.2.20 (Ubuntu) Phusion_Passenger/3.0.11 PHP/5.3.6-13ubuntu3.2 with Suhosin-Patch configured -- resuming normal operations

Solution

The problem was a culmination of Permission errors and Phusion Passenger being installed incorrectly.

The issue was I was trying to run as a regular "user" instead of root. I fixed this by either sudo'ing my command, or sudo su'ing into root and running service apache2 restart. Evidently restarting apache2 as a regular user if okay, but Redmine and Ruby requires escalated permissions to run ulimit changes.

Comments

[Caesium]

It would be great if you could briefly describe which permissions you had to fix, in order that this question/answer might be useful to future Googler visitors :)

[ripper234]

I just changed apachectl configtest to sudo apachectl configtest and the error went away.

[ehime]

@ripper234 That's because you weren't running it with the correct permissions, sudo(er) was needed.

[ripper234]

Yeah, just wanted to make the solution explicit.