Home / ubuntu / Questions / 214685
In Process
Kevin Burton
Asked: 2012-11-09 10:25:34 +0800 CST

What does `Unknown id` mean?

  • 772

When I start or reboot my Ubuntu Server I get a lot of messages starting this or that but towards the end I get a message Unknown id: /home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev1/bin/riak. I checked the <path> and it exists and is the same path as in the error message. I am thinking that this error comes from init.d and at this point in the boot up process the /home/kevin part of the path doesn't exist yet or there is a permission problem. Here is a copy of the ls -l output with an appended pwd:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 kevin kevin     0 Nov  8 12:08 ls.txt
-rwx------ 1 kevin kevin  8531 Sep 25 23:22 riak
-rwx------ 1 kevin kevin 17710 Sep 25 23:22 riak-admin
-rwx------ 1 kevin kevin  2400 Sep 25 23:22 search-cmd
/home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev1/bin

The script that I suspect is at fault has these lines:

su - /home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev1/bin/riak -c "$DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS" || return 2
su - /home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev2/bin/riak -c "$DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS" || return 2
su - /home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev3/bin/riak -c "$DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS" || return 2
su - /home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev4/bin/riak -c "$DAEMON $DAEMON_ARGS" || return 2

If it is a permission problem please explain why the system cannot execute/read these files.

startup

1 Answers

  1. Take a look at the man page for su.

    man su

    Check the first 4 lines...

    NAME
       su - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs

SYNOPSIS
       su [OPTION]... [-] [USER [ARG]...]

    Essentially what you are doing, is trying to run a shell as "/home/kevin/riak-1.2.1/dev/dev4/bin/riak." Since you probably don't have a userid of that exact string, it is (correctly) telling you that it cannot find a user by that identifier.

    • 1