HDB start fails because of incorrect configuration osgroup sapsys

Problem

The HANA indexserver fails to start.

./HDB start

You get the error message that the index server failed to start. You can try to start the indexserver manually.

cd /usr/sap/HDB/HDB02/exe
./hdbindexserver

Indexserver is still failing to start, however now shows a more detailed error description (ignore the DBNAME part).

Incorrect configuration osgroup 'sapsys' (1001) defined by tenant config differs from process group (1002)!

The error is also logged to the trace file:

indexserver CheckUserGroup.cpp(00094) : Incorrect configuration osgroup 'sapsys' (1001) defined by tenant config differs from process group (1002)!

Root cause

The error states that the hdbadm user should be assigned to group sapsys, but is not. The numbers are the groupd ids. Group sapsys has id 1001, and the user is assigned to a group with id 1002. To see the groups user hdbadm is assigned to, use the id command.

id

Output

uid=1001(hdbadm) gid=1002(hdbshm) groups=1002(hdbshm),1001(sapsys),1003(sapinst),1004(sccgroup)

The user id is 1001, and the group id (primary group) is 1002. Total groups assigned to the users are 1002, 1001, 1003, 1004.

more /etc/groups

As you can see, hdbadm user is assigned to group sapsys (1001) and hdbshm (1002). While being assigned to the group hdbindexserver is missing, group sapsys is not the primary group of the user. The gid is set to 1002 and not 1001. And that’s what the error message is saying: wrong group assigned.

Solution

Indexserver is expecting the hdbadm user to be assigned to sapsys as primary group. To solve this, it is necessary to assure that the user hdbadm is assigned to group sapsys. Change the second number to 1001 (or any other number that matches the sapsys group id in your system)

sudo vim /etc/passwd

Log in again as hdbadm (login needed to reassign the groups). Check that gid is now set to 1001.

id

gid of the user is now set to sapsys (1001). Start hdbindexserver again.

DBNAME=HDB ./hdbindexserver

The indexserver will start and not complain about misconfigured group assignment.