Custom systemd service to run Gunicorn not working - django

Question

I am trying to deploy my Django website to a Ubuntu server. I am following this tutorial: linuxhint.com/create_django_app_ubuntu/. However, the Gunicorn service doesn't work.
I have my site at /home/django/blog.
My Python 3.6 virtualenv is activated at /home/django/.venv/bin/activate (-rwxr-xr-x 1 django root 2207 Sep 21 14:07 activate).
The script for starting the server is at /home/django/bin/start-server.sh (-rwxr-xr-x 1 django root 69 Sep 21 15:50 start-server.sh), with the following content:
cd /home/django
source .venv/bin/activate
cd blog
gunicorn blog.wsgi
Running this script manually works just fine.
The Gunicorn service is at /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service, with this content:
[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=django
ExecStart=/home/django/bin/start-server.sh
Restart=on-failure
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Running systemctl status gunicorn.service gives this:
● gunicorn.service - Gunicorn
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2020-09-21 16:15:17 UTC; 6s ago
Process: 1114 ExecStart=/home/django/bin/start-server.sh (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Main PID: 1114 (code=exited, status=203/EXEC)
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: Stopped Gunicorn.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 21 16:15:17 example.com systemd[1]: Failed to start Gunicorn.
Sep 21 16:15:18 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Sep 21 16:15:18 example.com systemd[1]: gunicorn.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Sep 21 16:15:18 example.com systemd[1]: Failed to start Gunicorn.
Sep 21 14:22:36 example.com systemd[7906]: gunicorn.service: Failed to execute command: Permission denied
Sep 21 14:22:36 example.com systemd[7906]: gunicorn.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /home/django/bin/start-server.sh: Permission denied
Sep 21 14:23:40 example.com systemd[7940]: gunicorn.service: Failed to execute command: Permission denied
Sep 21 14:23:40 example.com systemd[7940]: gunicorn.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /home/django/bin/start-server.sh: Permission denied
Sep 21 14:24:47 example.com systemd[7958]: gunicorn.service: Failed to execute command: Permission denied
Sep 21 14:24:47 example.com systemd[7958]: gunicorn.service: Failed at step EXEC spawning /home/django/bin/start-server.sh: Permission denied
Permission denied
.
.
.
I ran chown -R django:django /home/django. Now, the output of ls -lah /home/django is:
total 32K
drwxr-xr-x 5 django django 4.0K Sep 21 14:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Sep 21 14:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 220 Apr 4 2018 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 3.7K Apr 4 2018 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 807 Apr 4 2018 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 4 django django 4.0K Sep 21 14:07 .venv
drwxr-xr-x 2 django django 4.0K Sep 21 15:58 bin
drwxr-xr-x 3 django django 4.0K Sep 21 14:08 blog
Solution
Thanks to Dmitry Belaventsev, the solution to this is to change
ExecStart=/home/django/bin/start-server.sh
to
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/django/bin/start-server.sh
In the file /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service.

Answer 1

Your systemd service is setup to execute the script from behalf of django user. In the meantime:
ls -lah /home/django
total 32K
drwxr-xr-x 5 django django 4.0K Sep 21 14:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Sep 21 14:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 220 Apr 4 2018 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 3.7K Apr 4 2018 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 django django 807 Apr 4 2018 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 4 django root 4.0K Sep 21 14:07 .venv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Sep 21 15:58 bin
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Sep 21 14:08 blog
As you can see:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4.0K Sep 21 14:04 ..
and
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4.0K Sep 21 15:58 bin
which means:
/home directory belongs to root:root
/home/django/bin belongs to root:root
To let systemd execute a bash script from behalf of django user:
That script should be executable
All parent directories should have execution rights
All those directories and the script should be available for django user
The quickest solution:
chown -R /home/django django:django
Also you could play with group and group rights as well.