STDOUT and STDERR file creation when running couchdb -b - permission problems

[David Asfaha <da...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I'm running couchdb on Ubuntu. The first time I tried to run "couchdb -b" to
put the process in the background I got this error message:"Apache CouchDB
needs write permission on the STDOUT file: couchdb.stdout"

It seems that when couchdb is run with -b it tests for write permissions on
couchdb.stdout and couchdb.stderr in the directory where couchdb is started.
I don't see why couchdb should be able to write to my home directory so I
changed the location of these two file to be the log folder. IMO this a more
sensible default. I was about to submit a ticket about this, but before
doing that I just wanted to check here why these files are created in the
directory from which couchdb is run. Am I missing something obvious?

By the way, I'm new to couchdb and I love it. Keep up the good work :-)

Thanks,
David

Re: STDOUT and STDERR file creation when running couchdb -b - permission problems

[Noah Slater <ns...@tumbolia.org>]

> It seems that when couchdb is run with -b it tests for write  
> permissions on
> couchdb.stdout and couchdb.stderr in the directory where couchdb is  
> started.
> I don't see why couchdb should be able to write to my home directory  
> so I
> changed the location of these two file to be the log folder. IMO  
> this a more
> sensible default. I was about to submit a ticket about this, but  
> before
> doing that I just wanted to check here why these files are created  
> in the
> directory from which couchdb is run. Am I missing something obvious?

Yeps!

If you want to run CouchDB in the background, it is recommended that  
you do:

   /etc/init.d/couchdb start

As you might imagine, this script takes care of switching into the  
correct user, and doing log files. If you really wish to start CouchDB  
by hand, and in the background, it is expected you take care of this  
manually, or specify a proper location for STDOUT and STDERR.