Description of problem: It's not possible to restart auditd: # systemctl restart auditd Failed to issue method call: Operation refused, unit auditd.service may be requested by dependency only. I tried the restart legacy script: /usr/libexec/initscripts/legacy-actions/auditd/restart but that killed the auditd daemon and then it fails to start the auditd daemon afterwards, leaving no auditd daemon running on the system now. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): audit-2.3.1-2.fc18.x86_64 How reproducible: All the time Steps to Reproduce: 1. $ systemctl restart auditd Actual results: Failed to issue method call: Operation refused, unit auditd.service may be requested by dependency only. Expected results: restart auditd daemon
It's this line in the systemd auditd.service file: RefuseManualStop=yes I commented that out.
The audit daemon must be controlled from the service command. It will decide which commands can be sent to systemctl and which ones are supported by legacy actions. So, you should do: service auditd restart Unfortunately, it has to be this way.
Hmmm. Ok. But the service legacy restart seems to have a timing issue. It succeeds if you try again. If I put a short delay between stopping and restarting the daemon, it seems to be "ok".
A "sleep 1" statement was added between stop and start. This was fixed in audit-2.3.2-1.