# V1.6.10 - Soft reload not working under Centos 7.2

**URL:** <https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994>\
**Category:** Help!\
**Created:** [February 7, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994 "2017-02-07T09:24:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arianrhod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@Arianrhod](https://discourse.haproxy.org/u/Arianrhod)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994/1 "2017-02-07T09:24:24Z")

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Hi - I have two haproxy servers with identical haproxy.cfg files, one running under Ubuntu 16.04, the other Centos 7.2. I need the option to maintain existing connections while loading a new config file, so choose to use the soft reload option. On the Ubuntu server, I can run /etc/init.d/haproxy reload to ‘soft restart’ and it works perfectly, but on the Centos server, the same command doesn’t work.

Haproxy version is this on both:

HA-Proxy version 1.6.10 2016/11/20  
Copyright 2000-2016 Willy Tarreau [willy@haproxy.org](mailto:willy@haproxy.org)

Build options :  
TARGET = linux2628  
CPU = generic  
CC = gcc  
CFLAGS = -O2 -g -fno-strict-aliasing -Wdeclaration-after-statement  
OPTIONS =

Default settings :  
maxconn = 2000, bufsize = 16384, maxrewrite = 1024, maxpollevents = 200

Encrypted password support via crypt(3): yes  
Built without compression support (neither USE\_ZLIB nor USE\_SLZ are set)  
Compression algorithms supported : identity(“identity”)  
Built without OpenSSL support (USE\_OPENSSL not set)  
Built without PCRE support (using libc’s regex instead)  
Built without Lua support  
Built with transparent proxy support using: IP\_TRANSPARENT IPV6\_TRANSPARENT IP\_FREEBIND

Available polling systems :  
epoll : pref=300, test result OK  
poll : pref=200, test result OK  
select : pref=150, test result OK  
Total: 3 (3 usable), will use epoll.

Error on trying a reload is this:

Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy http\_frontend started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy http\_frontend started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy sspe started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy sspe started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy stats started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy stats started.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd: Reloaded SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd: haproxy.service: main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy: Shutting down haproxy: [FAILED]  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd: Unit haproxy.service entered failed state.  
Feb 7 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd: haproxy.service failed.

… but if I issue /etc/init.d/haproxy start, it starts correctly, even though the previous command had a ‘FAILED’ state for shutdown:

Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 systemd: Starting SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy http\_frontend started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy http\_frontend started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy sspe started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy sspe started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy stats started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8122]: Proxy stats started.  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy: Starting haproxy: [OK]  
Feb 7 07:26:41 apl00086i3 systemd: Started SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…

Any clues, please, or suggestions how this can be debugged further, since those log entries aren’t particularly useful?

thanks …

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AaronWest](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.haproxy.org/aaronwest/32/164_2.png) [@AaronWest](https://discourse.haproxy.org/u/AaronWest)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2017, 10:35am UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994/2 "2017-02-07T10:35:18Z")

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Okay I’m guessing here a little…

However you start it correctly with /etc/init.d/haproxy which would appear to be an old style init script, while the failed reload appears to be using “haproxy.service” suggesting a systemd style script.

Can I check do you have two scripts or is it just me misunderstanding? Normally the systemd script would live here if activated : /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/haproxy.service

Also for CentOS 7 and systemd try checking the output of “journalctl -xn” as it may offer more info.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arianrhod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@Arianrhod](https://discourse.haproxy.org/u/Arianrhod)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994/3 "2017-02-07T11:07:45Z")

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Thanks for your input Aaron. There is no script at /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/haproxy.service , only the /etc/init.d/haproxy one.

Reading through the journal log, I think the haproxy.service error was a red herrring, actually … when /etc/init.d/haproxy reload didn’t work, I tried the alternate systemctl reload haproxy command (given that it’s a systemd server), and that’s what threw the ‘Unit haproxy.service entered failed state’ error.

The order of commands I actually tried were:

/etc/init.d/haproxy reload  
… this came back with an error telling me to do a systemctl daemon-reload, which I did:  
systemctl daemon-reload

journalctl -u haproxy.service shows this error resulting from these two commands:

Feb 07 07:22:21 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: PID 7966 read from file /var/run/haproxy.pid does not exist or is a zombie.  
Feb 07 07:22:21 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Reloaded SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:22:21 apl00086i3 haproxy[7968]: Shutting down haproxy: [FAILED]

I then issued:  
/etc/init.d/haproxy start

journalctl shows this worked:

Feb 07 07:23:42 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Starting SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:23:42 apl00086i3 haproxy[8012]: Starting haproxy: [OK]  
Feb 07 07:23:42 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Started SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…

I then tried again with a systemctl reload command, which again failed:  
systemctl reload haproxy

Feb 07 07:25:10 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: PID 8037 read from file /var/run/haproxy.pid does not exist or is a zombie.  
Feb 07 07:25:10 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Reloaded SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:25:10 apl00086i3 haproxy[8039]: Shutting down haproxy: [FAILED]

… and then restarted:  
/etc/init.d/haproxy start

Feb 07 07:25:26 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Starting SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:25:26 apl00086i3 haproxy[8063]: Starting haproxy: [OK]  
Feb 07 07:25:26 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Started SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…

I then tried again, back to the original script:  
/etc/init.d/haproxy reload

Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8092]: Proxy http\_frontend started.  
Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Reloaded SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: haproxy.service: main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL  
Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 haproxy[8095]: Shutting down haproxy: [FAILED]  
Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Unit haproxy.service entered failed state.  
Feb 07 07:26:31 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: haproxy.service failed.

… note that it still refers to ‘haproxy.service’ despite using an old-style script … ??

Finally clean start again:  
/etc/init.d/haproxy start

Feb 07 07:26:41 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Starting SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…  
Feb 07 07:26:41 apl00086i3 haproxy[8118]: Starting haproxy: [OK]  
Feb 07 07:26:41 apl00086i3 systemd[1]: Started SYSV: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited for high availability environments…

I may have muddied the waters a little by trying both the systemd command and the old-style script, but the fact is that reload under neither command works - and we need it to; this is a production service that needs to be able to take one load-balanced server out of the loop while it’s being upgraded without impact to the service. Restarting each time is no good, as that kills off connections; we need the reload command to work.

For info, this is the /etc/init.d/haproxy script that was installed with the haproxy installation:

#!/bin/sh

# 

# chkconfig: - 85 15

# description: HA-Proxy is a TCP/HTTP reverse proxy which is particularly suited \

# for high availability environments.

# processname: haproxy

# config: /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg

# pidfile: /var/run/haproxy.pid

# Script Author: Simon Matter [simon.matter@invoca.ch](mailto:simon.matter@invoca.ch)

# Version: 2004060600

# Source function library.

if [-f /etc/init.d/functions]; then  
. /etc/init.d/functions  
elif [-f /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions] ; then  
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions  
else  
exit 0  
fi

# Source networking configuration.

. /etc/sysconfig/network

# Check that networking is up.

[“${NETWORKING}” = “no”] && exit 0

# This is our service name

BASENAME=`basename $0`  
if [-L $0]; then  
BASENAME=`find $0 -name $BASENAME -printf %l`  
BASENAME=`basename $BASENAME`  
fi

BIN=/usr/sbin/$BASENAME

CFG=/etc/$BASENAME/$BASENAME.cfg  
[-f $CFG] || exit 1

PIDFILE=/var/run/$BASENAME.pid  
LOCKFILE=/var/lock/subsys/$BASENAME

RETVAL=0

start() {  
quiet\_check  
if [$? -ne 0]; then  
echo "Errors found in configuration file, check it with ‘$BASENAME check’."  
return 1  
fi

echo -n "Starting $BASENAME: "  
daemon $BIN -D -f $CFG -p PIDFILE RETVAL=?  
echo  
[$RETVAL -eq 0] && touch $LOCKFILE  
return $RETVAL  
}

stop() {  
echo -n "Shutting down $BASENAME: "  
killproc BASENAME -USR1 RETVAL=?  
echo  
[$RETVAL -eq 0] && rm -f $LOCKFILE  
[$RETVAL -eq 0] && rm -f $PIDFILE  
return $RETVAL  
}

restart() {  
quiet\_check  
if [$? -ne 0]; then  
echo "Errors found in configuration file, check it with ‘$BASENAME check’."  
return 1  
fi  
stop  
start  
}

reload() {  
if ! [-s $PIDFILE]; then  
return 0  
fi

quiet\_check  
if [$? -ne 0]; then  
echo "Errors found in configuration file, check it with ‘$BASENAME check’."  
return 1  
fi  
$BIN -D -f $CFG -p PIDFILE -sf (cat $PIDFILE)  
}

check() {  
$BIN -c -q -V -f $CFG  
}

quiet\_check() {  
$BIN -c -q -f $CFG  
}

rhstatus() {  
status $BASENAME  
}

condrestart() {  
[-e $LOCKFILE] && restart || :  
}

# See how we were called.

case "1" in start) start ;; stop) stop ;; restart) restart ;; reload) reload ;; condrestart) condrestart ;; status) rhstatus ;; check) check ;; \*) echo "Usage: $BASENAME {start|stop|restart|reload|condrestart|status|check}"  
exit 1  
esac

exit $?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arianrhod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@Arianrhod](https://discourse.haproxy.org/u/Arianrhod)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2017, 9:30am UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994/4 "2017-02-10T09:30:47Z")

</div>

Is this something that I should raise on the mailing list? We need this functionality to work, and it currently isn’t.

thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AaronWest](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.haproxy.org/aaronwest/32/164_2.png) [@AaronWest](https://discourse.haproxy.org/u/AaronWest)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://discourse.haproxy.org/t/v1-6-10-soft-reload-not-working-under-centos-7-2/994/5 "2017-03-20T19:20:40Z")

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I recently had to rebuilt my CentOS 7 HAproxy box, in order to use the systemd wrapper you’ll need to copy the binary which gets compiled with HAproxy to :

cp haproxy-systemd-wrapper /usr/local/sbin/haproxy-systemd-wrapper

Then paste the following systemd script into the following location :

/usr/lib/systemd/system/haproxy.service

[Unit]  
Description=HAProxy Load Balancer  
After=network.target

[Service]  
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/sbin/haproxy -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg -c -q  
ExecStart=/usr/local/sbin/haproxy-systemd-wrapper -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg -p /run/haproxy.pid  
ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR2 $MAINPID  
KillMode=mixed  
Restart=always

[Install]  
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then issue a daemon reoload : systemctl daemon-reload

Followed by enabling and starting the service :

systemctl enable haproxy  
systemctl start haproxy

It worked for me on a fresh install although there is probably an easier way…