cPanel tailwatchd Failed

An email from a cPanel server with the “tailwatchd failed” warning message indicates that either the cpanel service is offline/down OR the cpanel service was restarted. The complete message looks like the following:

tailwatchd failed @ Tue Jan 5 02:05:06 2012. A restart was attempted automagically
Service Check Method: [check command] tailwatchd is not running

There isn’t anything to worry, however, you can check the tailwatchd logs for the failure reasons:

tail -f /usr/local/cpanel/logs/tailwatchd_log

To check the status of the ‘tailwatchd’ service and it’s output, execute

/usr/local/cpanel/libexec/tailwatchd –status
Driver (Active: 1) Cpanel::TailWatch::ChkServd
tailwatchd is enabled
Running, PID 24463
Driver (Active: 1) Cpanel::TailWatch::cPBandwd
Driver (Active: 1) Cpanel::TailWatch::Antirelayd
Driver (Active: 1) Cpanel::TailWatch::Eximstats

Restart the ‘cpanel’ service once, just to make sure it’s online

service cpanel restart

and if you still continue to receive the ‘tailwatchd failed’ emails, update “cPanel” on the server

/scripts/upcp –force