Had to remove httpd.pid and saslauthd

[rcjokibbe]

Yesterday I shutdown my ubuntu 10.04 server running zimbra 7.1.2 because I had to restart the VM host, which is Windows 7. When I started my ubuntu server I saw "task java blocked for more than 120 seconds" messages and it was frozen. I shutdown the Ubuntu VM by stopping the VM. On restart I was getting errors about httpd.pid and "zimbra could not open pid lock cyrus-sasl". Google searches suggested to remove/rename the files and restart zimbra, which fixed it. Being a ubuntu/zimbra newguy I am interested on what happened, how to avoid it and what do those files do?

[xeon]

By stopping the VM you sent a power off to the guest, which is like pulling the plug on a computer/server. The PID files were not cleaned out due to the stopping of VM. Next time "Shutdown Guest" is the best way to go. Or run shutdown command inside the guest OS.

Not sure what virtualization system you are using. But with VMware you need to have VMware tools installed on the guest to submit "Shutdown Guest" from the software console.