On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 01:49:52AM +0200, Martin Paraskevov wrote: > I installed tomcat5.5 on my Debian box (using apt-get) > but when I tried starting tomcat by running > > /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start > > it would just print: > > Starting Tomcat servlet engine: tomcat5.5. > > but Tomcat won't start. After reading tons of documentation > I was able to start Tomcat in the most weird (and lucky) > way. I was examining /var/lib/tomcat5.5/logs/catalina.out > which is where the standard output goes. > I wasn't actually able to open catalina.out by just running > > less catalina.out > > I had to run > > less -f catalina.out > > When I listed catalina.out I got: > > prw------- 1 tomcat55 nogroup 0 2007-01-03 01:18 catalina.out > > I really don't know what the first p in the permissions means, > please explain. > > After I forced reading catalina.out with less -f the terminal > would just hang at which point I had to Ctrl-C it after which > the normal less interface would resume and after exiting, > surprise, Tomcat is running. > > I am able to reproduce this every time and it looks to me > it is a bug in the Tomcat logging. Is it related to the fact > that catalina.out does not rotate? I just read somewhere > that catalina.out does not rotate, but I don't know what it > means. Could you please explain rotation? > > Regards, > Martin
I don't know anything about tomcat but I'll get the ball rolling by pointing out that the p means that catalina.out is a named pipe. A pipe is a FIFO of no lenght, the process that puts output to it hangs until something reads the other end of the pipe, similarily a process trying to read the pipe (like your less process) hangs untill another process puts data to it. It follows then that a named pipe will not be rotated like a log file. In any event, it sounds like there's a problem. Good luck, Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
