Lighttp Logrotate config in Lucid has incorrect postrotate command

[Andrew Manson (real_ate)]

Currently the lighttpd logrotate config file (/etc/logrotate.d/lighttpd) is causing lighttpd to reload after every log rotate. This will cause an installation with a password protected PEM file for SSL to stop lighttpd every time the logs are rotated. This is because on lighttpd reload it will prompt for the PEM passphrase.

The correct way to get lighttpd to reopen its file handles is to pass it a kill -HUP. This does not cause the service to prompt for the PEM passphrase and it will not stop the service for unattended log rotates.

This needs to be fixed.

The correct log line as shown on this page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lighttpd_for_SSL_and_non-SSL should be:

/bin/kill -HUP `cat /var/run/lighttpd.pid 2>/dev/null` 2> /dev/null || true

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

Thank you for your bug report.
I am marking it Triaged given the information and fix you've provided.

[Andrew Manson (real_ate) (real-ate)]

I would argue that the importance of this bug is actually higher than medium. In the case where you are using a password protected pem file (which you really should do for proper security) then your web server will just die every week and will require manual intervention. This is a very bad situation in production environments.

[gstrauss (gstrauss)]

Should have been fixed long ago.
If still an issue in active (not end-of-life) Ubuntu releases, please reopen.