# Vault.service existing with status 203/EXEC

**URL:** <https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vault-service-existing-with-status-203-exec/62934>\
**Category:** Vault\
**Created:** [February 19, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vault-service-existing-with-status-203-exec/62934 "2024-02-19T23:02:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kmadiwale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecc23a/32.png) [@kmadiwale](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/kmadiwale)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vault-service-existing-with-status-203-exec/62934/1 "2024-02-19T23:02:51Z")

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Hello All,

I am running open source version of vault in production mode on AWS EC2 instance. I upgraded the vault from 1.11 to 1.15.5. If I run the vault using systemctl it errors out with following “vault.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=203/EXEC”

However, if I run the vault directly from command line. i.e. same command used under “ExecStart” in service file it works fine.

ExecStart=/usr/bin/vault server -config=/etc/vault.d/vault.hcl

I also enabled debugging on systemctl config to check if I can get more insight, however, this is the only error I get.

Unable to understand what is really going on here.  
I see a lot of people also faced this error earlier.

Reaching out to the community for help.

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**Author:** ![StevenClark](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hashicorp/user_avatar/discuss.hashicorp.com/stevenclark/32/40349_2.png) [@StevenClark](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/StevenClark)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2024, 2:03am UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vault-service-existing-with-status-203-exec/62934/2 "2024-02-20T02:03:54Z")

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Hello!

This is just a guess as there isn’t much to go on but have you looked at the permissions/ownership of the vault binary?

`ls -l /usr/bin/vault`

I assume that the service file is running Vault as a user, not root. You didn’t mention if you tried running the Vault binary as that user or not? I doubt SELinux would be a culprit as that should have prevented you from executing the binary manually if it were an issue.

And finally have you checked for any clues in Vault’s log file?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kmadiwale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecc23a/32.png) [@kmadiwale](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/u/kmadiwale)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2024, 2:16am UTC](https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/vault-service-existing-with-status-203-exec/62934/3 "2024-02-20T02:16:50Z")

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Thanks for looking at this Steven.  
The service file is configured to run the service as vault user.  
The vault executable under /usr/bin is owned by root

The vault binary was executed as a root user. Log file only mentioned 203 error, nothing much in there.