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$ start playframework
start: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", 
sender=":1.6" (uid=1000 pid=1080 comm="start portal ") 
interface="com.ubuntu.Upstart0_6.Job" member="Start" error name="(unset)" 
requested_reply="0" destination="com.ubuntu.Upstart"
(uid=0 pid=1 comm="/sbin/init")

I'm trying to get playframework to start using this Upstart script.

I saw similar errors posted around the web, and here, but never found a general explaination of what they mean. Does it mean the process that's being started returned an error? What's the general way to debug these kinds of errors?

ripper234
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    It seems I was missing a sudo, as in sudo start playframework. I still don't know exactly what the above cryptic message means, so I'll leave this question up here. – ripper234 Mar 13 '12 at 17:58

1 Answers1

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It means you don't have permissions to tell Upstart what to do. As you said, you're missing sudo and normal user has no permissions to start or stop system jobs. The cryptic string is just very engineerish (and exact) way to say it :-)

Tuminoid
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    Linux usability still has a long way to go... – ripper234 Mar 15 '12 at 07:44
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    Linux usability doesn't fit in the same sentence as system administration :-) Command line tools are supposed to give you exact problem descriptions, otherwise they're useless. I agree though that this specific error message could be said differently. – Tuminoid Mar 16 '12 at 08:38
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    @Tuminoid out of interested, can you describe that error message. What tells you that you lack sufficient privileges? – AJP Sep 16 '13 at 16:26
  • "Rejected send message" meaning "permission denied" is standard way of expressing "missing root privileges" when receiver is pid=1 uid=0 (root). – Tuminoid Sep 23 '13 at 07:36
  • Hmm...sadly for me adding sudo then gives me "start: Job failed to start" w/o any useful info on why it failed to start :( – David Aug 17 '15 at 22:27
  • @David add console log stanza and check /var/log/upstart/<job>.log for logs. – Tuminoid Sep 04 '15 at 12:23