Unable to start Cassandra via Init service. But can start by directly running $ cassandra

Question

I just installed Cassandra on my server

Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.41-2+deb7u2 x86_64 GNU/Linux

by following the instructions on DataStax. It is recommended to start Cassandra using Init.

$ sudo service cassandra start (dies)

However, my process simply dies after a short while. But strangely I am able to start Cassandra by directly running it with no problems.

$ cassandra (no problem!)

I examined Cassandra's logs in /var/log/cassandra, but there are no errors. What am I doing wrong?

 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:25,759 CassandraDaemon.java (line 135) Logging initialized
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:25,819 YamlConfigurationLoader.java (line 80) Loading settings from file:/etc/cassandra/cassandra.yaml
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,426 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 143) Data files directories: [/var/lib/cassandra/data]
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,428 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 144) Commit log directory: /var/lib/cassandra/commitlog
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,428 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 184) DiskAccessMode 'auto' determined to be mmap, indexAccessMode is mmap
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,428 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 198) disk_failure_policy is stop
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,428 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 199) commit_failure_policy is stop
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,438 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 269) Global memtable threshold is enabled at 29MB
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:26,652 DatabaseDescriptor.java (line 408) Not using multi-threaded compaction
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,052 YamlConfigurationLoader.java (line 80) Loading settings from file:/etc/cassandra/cassandra.yaml
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,080 YamlConfigurationLoader.java (line 80) Loading settings from file:/etc/cassandra/cassandra.yaml
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,100 CassandraDaemon.java (line 160) JVM vendor/version: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM/1.7.0_75
 WARN [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,100 CassandraDaemon.java (line 165) OpenJDK is not recommended. Please upgrade to the newest Oracle Java release
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,101 CassandraDaemon.java (line 188) Heap size: 123731968/123731968
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,101 CassandraDaemon.java (line 190) Code Cache Non-heap memory: init = 2555904(2496K) used = 651968(636K) committed = 2555904(2496K) max = 50331648(49152K)
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,102 CassandraDaemon.java (line 190) Eden Space Heap memory: init = 83886080(81920K) used = 64290696(62783K) committed = 83886080(81920K) max = 83886080(81920K)
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,107 CassandraDaemon.java (line 190) Survivor Space Heap memory: init = 10485760(10240K) used = 0(0K) committed = 10485760(10240K) max = 10485760(10240K)
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,107 CassandraDaemon.java (line 190) CMS Old Gen Heap memory: init = 29360128(28672K) used = 0(0K) committed = 29360128(28672K) max = 29360128(28672K)
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,108 CassandraDaemon.java (line 190) CMS Perm Gen Non-heap memory: init = 21757952(21248K) used = 15079368(14725K) committed = 21757952(21248K) max = 174063616(169984K)
 INFO [main] 2015-03-04 08:24:27,108 CassandraDaemon.java (line 191) Classpath: /etc/cassandra:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/antlr-3.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/commons-cli-1.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/commons-codec-1.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/commons-lang3-3.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/compress-lzf-0.8.4.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/concurrentlinkedhashmap-lru-1.3.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/disruptor-3.0.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/guava-15.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/high-scale-lib-1.1.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jackson-core-asl-1.9.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jackson-mapper-asl-1.9.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jbcrypt-0.3m.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jline-1.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/json-simple-1.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/libthrift-0.9.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/log4j-1.2.16.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/lz4-1.2.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/metrics-core-2.2.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/netty-3.6.6.Final.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/reporter-config-2.1.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/servlet-api-2.5-20081211.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/slf4j-api-1.7.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/slf4j-log4j12-1.7.2.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/snakeyaml-1.11.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/snappy-java-1.0.5.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/snaptree-0.1.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/super-csv-2.1.0.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/thrift-server-0.3.7.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/apache-cassandra-2.0.12.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/apache-cassandra-thrift-2.0.12.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/apache-cassandra.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/stress.jar:/usr/share/java/jna.jar::/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar:/usr/share/cassandra/lib/jamm-0.2.5.jar
system.log (END)

Answer 1

I ran into this issue, so writing down this solution even though the question is really old.

I had modified the cassandra.yaml file (updated ports and a few things), and after that the service just wouldn't start. It would always show an active (exited) status, and there wouldn't be anything in any log.

It turns out that the service needs to be forcefully reloaded once, to ensure that all the config files are re-read.

sudo service cassandra force-reload

After this, you should be able to control the service as usual using service or systemctl.

sudo service cassandra status
sudo systemctl status cassandra
sudo systemctl stop cassandra
sudo systemctl start cassandra
sudo systemctl restart cassandra

Answer 2

Try to change head of init script from:

#! /bin/sh

to:

#! /bin/sh -x

Then restart service via init script(/etc/init.d/cassandra restart) and check output, there might be an error