[rabbitmq-discuss] rabbitmq-server restart also restarts epmd

Mon Nov 2 18:21:08 GMT 2009

Garrett,

Garrett Smith wrote:
> # pgrep epmd
> 28133
> # /etc/init.d/rabbitmq-server restart
> Restarting rabbitmq-server: SUCCESS
> rabbitmq-server.
> # pgrep epmd
> 29027
> 
> Needless to say, this makes other registered Erlang nodes running on
> the server very cranky :)
> 
> Is this by design? Is there a preferred way to restart rabbitmq on Debian?

This was introduced in order to prevent failures during package purge 
(which attempts to remove the 'rabbitmq' user, and failed when epmd was 
started by that user and is still running).

Note that it will only kill a 'rabbitmq' owned epmd, so one way to keep 
epmd running is to start it explicitly, as a different user.

We could do a few other things, e.g.

- only kill epmd if it was started by the init script

- only kill epmd on package purge

- start epmd as a different user, e.g. root

They all have drawbacks too though. Any other suggestions?

Matthias.