Nexus / Jetty doesn't want to start anymore: Unresolved address - jetty

Question

We have a Nexus server which worked fine until friday. Nexus was stopped and since we are unable to start it again but I can't figure out why ?
I think it's a Jetty problem. Here is the stack strace:
jvm 1 | 2012-08-13 09:31:10 WARN [er_start_runner] - org.mortbay.log - failed SelectChannelConnector#*:8080
jvm 1 | java.net.SocketException: Unresolved address
jvm 1 | at sun.nio.ch.Net.translateToSocketException(Net.java:58)
jvm 1 | at sun.nio.ch.Net.translateException(Net.java:84)
jvm 1 | at sun.nio.ch.Net.translateException(Net.java:90)
jvm 1 | at sun.nio.ch.ServerSocketAdaptor.bind(ServerSocketAdaptor.java:61)
jvm 1 | at org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector.open(SelectChannelConnector.java:216)
The configuration is (jetty.xml):
<Configure id="Server" class="org.mortbay.jetty.Server">
<Call name="addConnector">
<Arg>
<New class="org.mortbay.jetty.nio.SelectChannelConnector">
<Set name="host">${application-host}</Set>
<Set name="port">${application-port}</Set>
</New>
</Arg>
</Call>
<Set name="handler">
<New id="Contexts" class="org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandlerCollection">
<!-- The following configuration is REQUIRED, and MUST BE FIRST.
It makes the Plexus container available for use in the Nexus webapp. -->
<Call name="addLifeCycleListener">
<Arg>
<New class="org.sonatype.plexus.jetty.custom.InjectExistingPlexusListener" />
</Arg>
</Call>
<!-- The following configuration disables JSP taglib support, the validation of which
slows down Jetty's startup significantly. -->
<Call name="addLifeCycleListener">
<Arg>
<New class="org.sonatype.plexus.jetty.custom.DisableTagLibsListener" />
</Arg>
</Call>
</New>
</Set>
<New id="NexusWebAppContext" class="org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext">
<Arg><Ref id="Contexts"/></Arg>
<Arg>${webapp}</Arg>
<Arg>${webapp-context-path}</Arg>
<Set name="extractWAR">false</Set>
</New>
<Set name="stopAtShutdown">true</Set>
<Set name="sendServerVersion">true</Set>
<Set name="sendDateHeader">true</Set>
<Set name="gracefulShutdown">1000</Set>
</Configure>
and the plexus.properties:
application-port=8081
application-host=0.0.0.0
runtime=${basedir}/runtime
apps=${runtime}/apps
nexus-work=${basedir}/../../data/nexus/sonatype-work/nexus
nexus-app=${runtime}/apps/nexus
webapp=${runtime}/apps/nexus/webapp
webapp-context-path=/nexus
security-xml-file=${nexus-work}/conf/security.xml
application-conf=${nexus-work}/conf
runtime-tmp=${runtime}/tmp
# If this file is present, it will be used to configure Jetty.
jetty.xml=${basedir}/conf/jetty.xml
# Uncomment this to use the debug js files
#index.template.file=templates/index-debug.vm
Nexus version is 1.9.2.3
I can't understand:
why it wants to start a connector at port 8080 (while I only set port 8081) and
what means the address * (and why not 0.0.0.0) ? And of course why it doesn't want to start anymore ?
Thanks a lot for all your ideas!

Answer 1

I cannot comment on the 8080 vs 8081 issue, but as for the SocketException ...
The SocketException: unresolved address is usually due to some sort of host/dns/resolve configuration issue present on your system.
The most basic testcase for java that might help identify the issue would be the following
import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
public class AddrTest
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
try
{
InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getByName("0.0.0.0");
System.out.println("InetAddress => " + addr);
System.out.println("InetAddress.isAnyLocalAddress = " + addr.isAnyLocalAddress());
System.out.println("InetAddress.isLinkLocalAddress = " + addr.isLinkLocalAddress());
System.out.println("InetAddress.isLoopbackAddress = " + addr.isLoopbackAddress());
InetSocketAddress isockaddr = new InetSocketAddress(addr,8080);
System.out.println("InetSocketAddr = " + isockaddr);
System.out.println("InetSocketAddr.isUnresolved = " + isockaddr.isUnresolved());
}
catch (Throwable e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Run this, and you should have the output
InetAddress => /0.0.0.0
InetAddress.isAnyLocalAddress = true
InetAddress.isLinkLocalAddress = false
InetAddress.isLoopbackAddress = false
InetSocketAddr = /0.0.0.0:8080
InetSocketAddr.isUnresolved = false
What's important to note are the 2 lines...
InetAddress.isAnyLocalAddress = true - means that java + OS reports this as the ANY addr
InetSocketAddr.isUnresolved = false - means that java + OS was able to resolve this socket address
If you get an exception during this test, then you have some sort of fundamental host resolution issue on your system (dns, dhcp. vpn, etc/hosts, no IPv4 available, etc...), nothing you do in java, jetty, or nexus can fix this sort of issue. You'll need to address this (no pun intended) at the OS / Networking level.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue. Jetty was running inside docker container (jetty:9.3.24-jre8). You need to comment out line about http.host in start.ini:
#jetty.http.host='0.0.0.0'
Network interfaces get mixed up for some reason.

Answer 3

Solved!
The file jetty.xml had only the 'r' permission which is not enough: it must have the 'x' permission too. So Jetty was unable to read the file jetty.xml and in that case it tries to start a default connector on '*:8080' => * is not resolvable (I don't know why they used * instead of 0.0.0.0 ???)
So it was a configuration issue.