Write process id to file in Gitlab CI/CD script

Question

After building front- and backend with Gitlab CI/CD jobs I try to copy executables on server and rerun backend server.

Expected behaviour: kill process with pid from file /var/run/backend.pid, then run new one process in background and write new pid to same file.

Actual behaviour: everything is well, but file /var/run/backend.pid is empty (actually only new line character)

script:  
  - ssh root@draft.<...project name...>.tech "pkill -F /var/run/<...project name...>-backend.pid;rm /var/run/<...project name...>-backend.pid;/var/www/<...project name...>/backend/bin/backend > /var/log/<...project name...>-backend.log 2>&1 & disown;echo $! > /var/run/<...project name...>-backend.pid"

Please help me with my deploy. I do not know what cann be wrong, because locally same command works well.

Answer 1

Try and check if the file is created in the first place, by running only the first part of your command:

ssh root@draft.<...project name...>.tech  "pkill -F /var/run/<...project name...>-backend.pid"

That will validate that:

• gitlab-ci runs with an account which is able to do the ssh root@draft.<...project name...>.tech
• and the pkill command does actually generate a non-empty backend.pid file