I issued a nginx -s stop and after that I got this error when trying to reload it.
[error]: invalid PID number "" in "/var/run/nginx.pid"
That /var/run/nginx/pid file is empty atm.
What do I need to do to fix it?
nginx -s reload is only used to tell a running nginx process to reload its config. After a stop, you don't have a running nginx process to send a signal to. Just run nginx (possibly with a -c /path/to/config/file)
in my case I solved this by starting the service.
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start
The command above will start the service in Debian/Ubuntu. It will issue an error if there is any problem (like Apache listening in the same port)
After that nginx -s reload will work like a charm
This will clear out the issue on ubuntu 16.04 and above
sudo service nginx stop
you may need to remove the pid file nginx.pid
whose location may be defined in file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
look for line like
cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf | grep pid # see if pid file is defined
this line may live in file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
pid /run/nginx.pid; # in file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
if pid file does exist then remove it now
ls -la /var/run/nginx/pid # this file may live elsewhere
ls -la /run/nginx.pid # on Ubuntu 16.04+
after the pid file has been removed lets launch nginx
sudo service nginx start
ps -eaf|grep nginx # confirm its running
sudo nginx -t && sudo nginx -s reload # confirm config is OK
# typical output
# nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
# nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful
sudo service nginx stop # issue stop
ps -eaf|grep nginx # confirm it actually stopped
now sanity has been restored and you are free to launch at will
In the latest version(1.2.0) that I downloaded there is no "-s start" option, it will say nginx: invalid option: "-s start"
You can start nginx by
sudo /etc/nginx/sbin/nginx
The server will be started and then there wont be any Invalid pid number errors.
To avoid downtime with restarting nginx,
ps aux | grep nginx
PID of nginx master process
echo PID > /var/run/nginx.pid
nginx -s reload
In my case nginx was stopped (crashed I assume). Solved the issue by:
service nginx status
nginx stop/waiting
service nginx start
nginx start/running, process 3535
Then nginx -s reload worked like a charm.
I am using nginx/1.8.0 on trusty.
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