Job for nfs-server.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status nfs-server.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details. Resolution

On Red Hat Linux 7 operating system, some time you will get below NFS service failed error message.

"Job for nfs-server.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status nfs-server.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details."

The above error occur when you are taking restart of nfs service.

# systemctl restart nfs.service
Job for nfs-server.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status nfs-server.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
Resolution

# systemctl status nfs-server.service
nfs-server.service - NFS server and services
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nfs-server.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2018-04-27 09:56:08 IST; 8s ago
  Process: 21370 ExecStopPost=/usr/sbin/exportfs -f (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 21366 ExecStopPost=/usr/sbin/exportfs -au (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 21362 ExecStop=/usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd 0 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 21273 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd $RPCNFSDARGS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 2714 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/exportfs -r (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 21273 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Apr 27 09:56:07 localhost.redhat.com systemd[1]: Starting NFS server and services...
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com exportfs[2714]: exportfs: Failed to resolve foobar.com <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com exportfs[2714]: exportfs: Failed to resolve foobar.com <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com systemd[1]: nfs-server.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com systemd[1]: Failed to start NFS server and services.
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com systemd[1]: Unit nfs-server.service entered failed state.
Apr 27 09:56:08 localhost.redhat.com systemd[1]: nfs-server.service failed.

To resolve such issue you need to follow the below process.

You need to check which NFS version rpm is installed on the server.

#rpm -qa | grep nfs

the above command show you the installed nfs version.

Normally the above error occur due to lower version on nfs, so to resolve the issue you need to upgrade the nfs version.

installed the latest nfs rpm nfs-utils-1.3.0-0.33.el7 or later

#yum install nfs

The above command upgrade the nfs rpm, or you can download the manually rpm file and installed it through rpm -uvh command.

After that restart the nfs service again.

# systemctl restart nfs.service

it is started successfully, you can check the status via below command.

# systemctl status nfs.service

[root@localhost ~]# systemctl status nfs.service
● nfs-server.service - NFS server and services
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/nfs-server.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
  Drop-In: /run/systemd/generator/nfs-server.service.d
           └─order-with-mounts.conf
   Active: active (exited) since Thu 2018-04-27 03:47:57 IST; 18h ago
  Process: 32477 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/rpc.nfsd $RPCNFSDARGS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 32472 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c /bin/kill -HUP `cat /run/gssproxy.pid` (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 32469 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/exportfs -r (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 32477 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/nfs-server.service

Apr 26 03:47:57 localhost systemd[1]: Starting NFS server and services...
Apr 26 03:47:57 localhost systemd[1]: Started NFS server and services.