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I'm installing Neo4j server as a linux service, but when I install it, I get the following message:

/sbin/insserv: Permission denied

What is this? What should I do? I'm running everything with sudo.

Update - Scenario:

  1. I had installed it properly the first time, but then I moved the neo4j-directory to a different location.

  2. The neo4j-service was not recognized now.

  3. I removed the neo4j-service manually by removing from /etc/init.d and then running update-rc.d -f neo4j-service remove

  4. When I re-install it said /sbin/insserv no such directory, so I googled and did this:

    ln -s /usr/lib/insserv/insserv /sbin/insserv

  5. Now when I re-install it - it says /sbin/insserv: Permission denied

Using Ubuntu.

etc/sudoers:

#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
# directly modifying this file.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
Defaults        env_reset
Defaults        secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives:

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

Permissions on neo4j install script:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 username username 15K Feb 27 09:38 neo4j

UPDATE 2:

When I do a ls -lah on /sbin:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 May 15 20:29 insserv -> /usr/lib/insserv

and a ls -lah on /usr/lib:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Feb 14 03:37 insserv

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  • Give steps that you have done cause that error. – cuonglm May 15 '13 at 09:50
  • What OS (I assume Ubuntu), what part of the install throws this error, what commands did you run? – NickW May 15 '13 at 09:50
  • Try `man insserv`. What does your `/etc/sudoers` contain? – dawud May 15 '13 at 09:50
  • @Gnouc updated question – user May 15 '13 at 09:56
  • @NickW Updated with the commands. – user May 15 '13 at 09:57
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    What does `/sbin/insserv` point to? Is it a symlink, but you moved where it needs to look? – vgoff May 15 '13 at 09:57
  • What are the permissions on neo4j-service (`ls -lah`)? – Tom O'Connor May 15 '13 at 09:58
  • @TomO'Connor `-rwxr-xr-x 1 username username 15K Feb 27 09:38 neo4j` – user May 15 '13 at 10:01
  • @vgoff I'm a little newbie. Please explain what you mean. – user May 15 '13 at 10:02
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    Can you `ls -lah` on /sbin/insserv too ? – Tom O'Connor May 15 '13 at 10:05
  • If you view the permissions of that file, you would see a `l` instead of a dash. It might look similar to the permissions you have shown for neo4j, except it would be 'lrwxr-xr-x' perhaps. The 'l' on the left indicating that it is a link to a file (that may not exist if you moved it.) – vgoff May 15 '13 at 10:06
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    @TomO'Connor updated – user May 15 '13 at 10:09
  • I suspect insserv isn't the problem here. – Tom O'Connor May 15 '13 at 10:10
  • If this is Ubuntu, please remember that it uses upstart, not "common" init or dependency-based boot, as Debian does. There's a reason the insserv package doesn't bundle /sbin/insserv in Ubuntu, while it does in Debian. Your best bet would be to add a upstart configuration file in /etc/init for the neo4j service, instead of trying to use a script in init.d. I know this is not the answer to your question, but I hope to address the real problem instead :-) – rsuarez May 15 '13 at 10:38
  • Is selinux enabled? Run [sestatus](http://serverfault.com/questions/617682/unable-to-re-enable-selinux) to find out. – chicks Jun 21 '15 at 05:44

1 Answers1

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rsuarez makes some good points about your init/upstart configuration. However, it is not clear if you are getting the same error when running the insserv program as root manually. There are two things you can do to debug the insserv permissions directly:

  1. See if the /sbin/insserv command gives the same error when running from a command line manually
  2. If you get the same permission denied from #1, try to run it with strace to see what file or permissions it is failing on. If #1 does not give you permission denied, then follow the rsuarez and @TomO'Connor guidance to look at the potential upstart or Neo4j problems because it is probably not directly related to the /sbin/insserv binary.
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  • And in addition: "which" insserv to avoid the binary existing in multiple path locations leaving you wondering about the right permissions on the binary you would expected to be executed rather then the one which actually is tried to be executed by your command. – Peter Jan 08 '14 at 20:39