Hello, I'm testing out the bird2 2.0.7 package from the PPA under Ubuntu 18.04, and I've found a problem with permissions on log files when run under systemd. I created a directory /var/log/bird/ owned by bird:bird, and configured logging as: log "/var/log/bird/bird.log" all; This works fine when I start bird by hand: root@rs1:/etc/bird# ls -l /var/log/bird total 0 root@rs1:/etc/bird# /usr/sbin/bird -f -u bird -g bird ^C root@rs1:/etc/bird# ls -l /var/log/bird total 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 bird bird 39 Apr 24 11:00 bird.log The problem is that when running under systemd, the log file is created owned by root:root and this causes bird to crash with a permissions error: root@rs1:/etc/bird# rm /var/log/bird/bird.log root@rs1:/etc/bird# systemctl start bird root@rs1:/etc/bird# ls -l /var/log/bird total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 24 11:03 bird.log root@rs1:/etc/bird# journalctl -eu bird ... Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 systemd[1]: Starting BIRD Internet Routing Daemon... Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 systemd[1]: Started BIRD Internet Routing Daemon. Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 bird[1849]: /etc/bird/bird.conf:9:30 Unable to open log file '/var/log/bird/bird.log': Permission denied Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 bird[1849]: bird: /etc/bird/bird.conf:9:30 Unable to open log file '/var/log/bird/bird.log': Permission denied Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 systemd[1]: bird.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Apr 24 11:01:28 rs1 systemd[1]: bird.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. I found the cause.  /lib/systemd/system/bird.service includes the line "ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/bird -p", and if the log file doesn't exist, it creates it owned by root:root root@rs1:/etc/bird# rm /var/log/bird/bird.log root@rs1:/etc/bird# /usr/sbin/bird -p root@rs1:/etc/bird# ls -l /var/log/bird/bird.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 24 11:07 /var/log/bird/bird.log The documentation for the -p flag states:        -p            Just parse the config file and exit. Return value is zero if the config file is valid, nonzero if there are some errors. So it seems like a bug that it creates the log file. Workaround is to create the log file manually first: root@rs1:/etc/bird# touch /var/log/bird/bird.log root@rs1:/etc/bird# chown bird:bird /var/log/bird/bird.log You would have to be careful whenever rotating the log file too. Cheers, Brian.