nginx: [emerg] open() "/var/run/nginx.pid" failed (13: Permission denied)

[beerich@…]

The error (in Summary) has showed up in fresh installs of both FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE and 11.1-RC1. Reinstalled nginx a number of times, with no changes in the result. It's requiring Passenger, which isn't used because this error delivers a 404 before Passenger can provide a route.

nginx -V:
nginx version: nginx/1.12.0
built with OpenSSL 1.0.2k-freebsd 26 Jan 2017
TLS SNI support enabled
configure arguments:

--prefix=/usr/local/etc/nginx
--with-cc-opt='-I /usr/local/include'
--with-ld-opt='-L /usr/local/lib'
--conf-path=/usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
--sbin-path=/usr/local/sbin/nginx
--pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid
--error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log
--user=www
--group=www
--modules-path=/usr/local/libexec/nginx
--with-debug
--with-file-aio
--http-client-body-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/client_body_temp
--http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/fastcgi_temp
--http-proxy-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/proxy_temp
--http-scgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/scgi_temp
--http-uwsgi-temp-path=/var/tmp/nginx/uwsgi_temp
--http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log
--with-http_addition_module
--with-http_auth_request_module
--with-http_dav_module
--with-http_flv_module
--with-http_geoip_module=dynamic
--with-http_gzip_static_module
--with-http_gunzip_module
--with-http_mp4_module
--add-module=/usr/ports/www/nginx/work/nchan-0.99.16
--with-http_random_index_module
--with-http_realip_module
--with-http_secure_link_module
--with-http_slice_module
--with-http_stub_status_module
--with-http_sub_module
--add-module=/usr/ports/www/nginx/work/nginx-upload-module-72ec037
--with-pcre
--add-dynamic-module=/usr/ports/www/nginx/work/passenger-5.1.5/src/nginx_module
--with-http_v2_module
--with-stream=dynamic
--with-stream_ssl_module
--with-stream_ssl_preread_module
--with-threads
--with-mail=dynamic
--without-mail_imap_module
--without-mail_pop3_module
--without-mail_smtp_module
--with-mail_ssl_module
--with-http_ssl_module

uname -a:
FreeBSD neb.local 11.1-RC1 FreeBSD 11.1-RC1 #0 r320486: Fri Jun 30 02:25:16 UTC 2017 root@…:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64

Clean installation. Passenger cannot provide a route, so the whole server delivers a 404. Error reported:

nginx -t
nginx: the configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: [emerg] open() "/var/run/nginx.pid" failed (13: Permission denied)
nginx: configuration file /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf test failed

Permissions on /var/run/nginx.pid are 640. Same error with 655.

Same problem happened on FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE

[beerich@…]

Replying to mdounin:

Why why was this set to invalid?

[Maxim Dounin]

Because it is not a bug. Configuration test is expected to fail if there is no access to files specified in the configuration, and the error clearly indicates that test open of the pid file failed with the EPERM error.

If you have further questions, please use ​available support options instead.