Unable to start Confluence using an Ansible Tower job
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Summary
While attempting to automate the Confluence startup using an Ansible Tower job, the application can't be reached and the process is not running after the job is executed.
Environment
The Ansible playbook has a task like this:
- name: Run Confluence startup script
shell: sh <CONFLUENCE-INSTALL>/bin/start-confluence.sh
Diagnosis
- Standard Out screen on Ansible Tower shows Tomcat has started
- No errors in Standard Error
- catalina.out and atlassian-confluence.log are not updated after the job is executed
- The Confluence process is not running on the host and not responding to browser requests after the job is executed
Cause
As covered in this forum discussion, running the startup scripts through an Ansible job can lead to this behavior. Although the topic is focused on Tomcat, the Confluence startup uses the same scripts:
Solution
Create the Confluence service on the host as follows:
Then, edit the Ansible playbook to use the systemd module to start the service:
- name: Start the Confluence service if stopped
systemd: name=confluence state=started
More details on this module can be found here: