nginx.service failed because the control process exited
NginxServerSystemdWorkerSystemctlNginx Problem Overview
>nginx.service failed because the control process exited
$ systemctl status nginx.service
nginx.service - Startup script for nginx service
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2016-03-08 13:23:35 GMT; 2min 20s ago
Mar 08 13:23:33 startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] bind() to ------------ f...e)
Mar 08 13:23:33 startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] bind() to ----- f...e)
Mar 08 13:23:34 startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] bind() to ----- f...e)
Mar 08 13:23:34 startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] bind() to ----- f...e)
Mar 08 13:23:35 startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] bind() to ----- f...e)
Mar 08 13:23:35 .startdedicated.com nginx[8315]: nginx: [emerg] still could not bind()
Mar 08 13:23:35 startdedicated.com systemd[1]: nginx.service: control process exited, code=...=1
Mar 08 13:23:35 startdedicated.com systemd[1]: Failed to start Startup script for nginx service.
Mar 08 13:23:35 startdedicated.com systemd[1]: Unit nginx.service entered failed state.
Mar 08 13:23:35 startdedicated.com systemd[1]: nginx.service failed.
Nginx Solutions
Solution 1 - Nginx
Try to run the following two commands:
sudo fuser -k 80/tcp
sudo fuser -k 443/tcp
Then execute
sudo service nginx restart
If that worked, your hosting provider might be installing Apache on your server by default during a fresh install, so keep reading for a more permenant fix. If that didn't work, keep reading to identify the issue.
Run nginx -t
and if it doesn't return anything, I would verify Nginx error log. By default, it should be located in /var/log/nginx/error.log
.
You can open it with any text editor:
sudo nano /var/log/nginx/error.log
Can you find something suspicious there?
The second log you can check is the following
sudo nano /var/log/syslog
When I had this issue, it was because my hosting provider was automatically installing Apache during a clean install. It was blocking port 80.
When I executed sudo nano /var/log/nginx/error.log
I got the following as the error log:
2018/08/04 06:17:33 [emerg] 634#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use)
2018/08/04 06:17:33 [emerg] 634#0: bind() to [::]:80 failed (98: Address already in use)
2018/08/04 06:17:33 [emerg] 634#0: bind() to 0.0.0.0:80 failed (98: Address already in use)
What the above error is telling is that it was not able to bind nginx to port 80 because it was already in use.
To fix this, you need to run the following:
yum install net-tools
sudo netstat -tulpn
When you execute the above you will get something like the following:
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1762/httpd
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1224/sshd
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1528/sendmail:acce
tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 1224/sshd
You can see that port 80 is blocked by httpd (Apache). This could also be port 443 if you are using SSL.
Get the PID of the process that uses port 80 or 443. And send the kill command changing the <PID>
value:
sudo kill -2 <PID>
Note in my example the PID value of Apache was 1762
so I would execute sudo kill -2 1762
Aternatively you can execute the following:
sudo fuser -k 80/tcp
sudo fuser -k 443/tcp
Now that port 80 or 443 is clear, you can start Nginx by running the following:
sudo service nginx restart
It is also advisable to remove whatever was previously blocking port 80 & 443. This will avoid any conflict in the future. Since Apache (httpd) was blocking my ports I removed it by running the following:
yum remove httpd httpd-devel httpd-manual httpd-tools mod_auth_kerb mod_auth_mysql mod_auth_pgsql mod_authz_ldap mod_dav_svn mod_dnssd mod_nss mod_perl mod_revocator mod_ssl mod_wsgi
Solution 2 - Nginx
In my case, it's because of apache server is running somehow. So I stop apache then restart nginx. Work like a charm!
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Solution 3 - Nginx
May come in handy to check syntax of Nginx's configuration files by running:
nginx -t -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
Solution 4 - Nginx
The cause of the issue is this, I already had Apache
web server installed and actively listening on port 80
on my local machine.
Apache
and Nginx
are the two major open-source high-performance web servers capable of handling diverse workloads to satisfy the needs of modern web demands. However, Apache
serves primarily as a HTTP server whereas Nginx
is a high-performance asynchronous web server and reverse proxy server.
The inability of Nginx
to start was because Apache
was already listening on port 80 as its default port, which is also the default port for Nginx
.
One quick workaround would be to stop Apache
server by running the command below
systemctl stop apache2
systemctl status apache2
And then starting up Nginx
server by running the command below
systemctl stop nginx
systemctl status nginx
However, this same issue will arise again when we try to start Apache
server again, since they both use port 80
as their default port.
Here's how I fixed it:
Run the command below to open the default configuration file of Nginx in Nano editor
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
When the file opens in Nano editor, scroll down and change the default server port to any port of your choice. For me, I chose to change it to port 85
# Default server configuration
#
server {
listen 85 default_server;
listen [::]:85 default_server;
Also, scroll down and change the virtual host port to any port of your choice. For me, I also chose to change it to port 85
# Virtual Host configuration for example.com
#
# You can move that to a different file under sites-available/ and symlink that
# to sites-enabled/ to enable it.
#
# server {
# listen 85;
# listen [::]:85;
Then save and exit the file by pressing on your keyboard:
Ctrl + S
Ctrl + X
You may still be prompted to press Y on your keyboard to save your changes.
Finally, confirm that your configuration is correct and restart the Nginx
server:
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx
You can now navigate to localhost:nginx-port
(localhost:85
) on your browser to confirm the changes.
Displaying the default Nginx start page
If you want the default Nginx start page to show when you navigate to localhost:nginx-port
(localhost:85
) on your browser, then follow these steps:
Examine the directory /var/www/html/
which is the default root
directory for both Apache
and Nginx
by listing its contents:
cd ~
ls /var/www/html/
You will 2 files listed in the directory:
index.html # Apache default start page
index.nginx-debian.html # Nginx default start page
Run the command below to open the default configuration file of Nginx in Nano editor:
cd ~
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
Change the order of the index files in the root directory from this:
root /var/www/html;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;
to this (putting the default Nginx start page - index.nginx-debian.html
in the 2nd position immediately after index
):
root /var/www/html;
# Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
index index.nginx-debian.html index.html index.htm;
Then save and exit the file by pressing on your keyboard:
Ctrl + S
Ctrl + X
You may still be prompted to press Y on your keyboard to save your changes.
Finally, confirm that your configuration is correct and restart the Nginx
server:
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx
You can now navigate to localhost:nginx-port
(localhost:85
) on your browser to confirm the changes.
Solution 5 - Nginx
Try to debug with command:
$ service nginx configtest
Which outputs something like:
> Testing nginx configuration: nginx: [emerg] unknown directive "stub_status" in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/nginx_status:11 > nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed
And fix those warnings
Then restart nginx
Solution 6 - Nginx
Jan, 2022 Update:
The easiest way is kill all nginx processes:
sudo killall nginx
Then:
sudo nginx
Or:
sudo service nginx start
Solution 7 - Nginx
When something cannot bind to a port, it's 5% because it's not started by root (sticky suid bit, sudo) and 94% because another application is already bound to that port.
Make sure nginx is really shutdown and you don't try to start it twice by accident.
Make sure you don't have Apache or other services running that use port 80.
Utilize netstat -a | grep tcp
to find out more.
Solution 8 - Nginx
Change the port may help as 80 port is already using somewhere
vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
Change the port:
listen 8080 default_server;
listen [::]:8080 default_server;
And then restart the nginx server
nginx -t
service nginx restart
Solution 9 - Nginx
-
use these command to
1. sudo service apache2 stop 2. sudo apt-get purge apache2 3. sudo apt-get update 4. sudo apt-get install nginx 5. sudo service nginx restart
Solution 10 - Nginx
$ ps ax | grep nginx<br>
$ kill -9 PIDs
$ service nginx start
or set back /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
> location / {
# First attempt to serve request as file, then
# as directory, then fall back to displaying a 404.
try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
Solution 11 - Nginx
For my case, I need to run
sudo nginx -t
It will check if Nginx configuration is correct or not, if not, it will show you which configuration causes the error.
Then you need to go to /etc/nginx/sites-available
to fix the broken configuration.
After that, you can restart Nginx without any problem.
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Solution 12 - Nginx
Try set a user in nginx.conf, maybe that's why he can not start the service:
User www-data;
Solution 13 - Nginx
In my case, nginx was not able to open the log file which is located here /var/log/nginx/error.log
This was because I had deleted the log directory to free up space in root (which turned out to be stupid)
I then created a log folder in var and an nginx folder in log.
Then simply run sudo service nginx start
Solution 14 - Nginx
I had the same problem when I used Vesta, which uses nginx with apache. The problem was that after applying all updates Apache started listening to 443 for https. The solution was just to comment out the 443 stuff in ports.conf. This is because nginx also uses this port.
Solution 15 - Nginx
Some other process is already running and bound to ports 80/443, thus systemd cannot start nginx. This is almost always because the process was started manually instead of via systemd, or because you tried to start two different web servers at the same time.
To resolve the problem, kill the process yourself before restarting it via systemd.
For me apache web server was already running, so killing it did the trick !
sudo killall apache2
Solution 16 - Nginx
Check df -h if you are under centOS system
Solution 17 - Nginx
This worked for me:
First, go to
cd /etc/nginx
and make the changes in nginx.conf and make the default port to listen from 80 to any of your choice 85 or something.
Then use this command to bind that port type for nginx to use it:
semanage port -a -t PORT_TYPE -p tcp 85
where PORT_TYPE is one of the following: http_cache_port_t, http_port_t, jboss_management_port_t, jboss_messaging_port_t, ntop_port_t, puppet_port_t.
Then run:
sudo systemctl start nginx; #sudo systemctl status nginx
[you should see active status]; #sudo systemctl enable nginx
Solution 18 - Nginx
Had this issue when provisioning a new site for VVV in vvv-config.yml with a faulty syntax, vagrant up
would throw the error. Deleting and reverting to old configuration, running vagrant provision
helped
Solution 19 - Nginx
This worked for me
sudo fuser -k 80/tcp
sudo fuser -k 443/tcp
then
sudo -H apt-get purge nginx-common nginx-full
sudo -H apt-get install nginx-common nginx-full
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Solution 20 - Nginx
In my case, it was due to the invalid syntax in my /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
file.
The exact error message was the following.
Job for nginx.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status nginx.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
So I ran the following command for details.
> systemctl status nginx.service
invalid URL prefix in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:48
which said that nginx.conf had an invalid syntax.
I fixed it referring to this.
Solution 21 - Nginx
It is because your apache server is running
Try to stop your apache server with this command
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
Then restart nginx server
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Solution 22 - Nginx
reinstalling nginx has worked for me
uninstall nginx:
sudo apt-get remove nginx nginx-common
sudo apt-get autoremove
install nginx:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx
Solution 23 - Nginx
Turns out I had a file under sites-enabled that I forgot to unlink
, yet its corresponding file in sites-available was no longer existing. If you have such a file, deleted it and run;
sudo service nginx restart
To unlink a file use;
sudo unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/file-name
Solution 24 - Nginx
I faced the same problem and first I ran sudo nginx -t
then I notice there are some issues in my site configuration file and then I navigate to /etc/nginx/sites-available
and fix the broken configuration.
After that, you can restart Nginx without any problem.
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Solution 25 - Nginx
I'm using RHEL 7.4 with NGINX 1.13.8 and if I do the same with sudo, it works Ok:
sudo systemctl status nginx.service
Just make sure whoever wants to use nginx.service
has execute permissions to it.
Solution 26 - Nginx
In my case, I missed a semicolon in the default file that's the reason this error appars.