MariaDB crashes after update on a Plesk server: mariadb.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=218/CAPABILITIES

Symptoms

• After an update on a Plesk server with CentOS 7.9 and MariaDB 10.5, MariaDB is crashing and does not start.

• Output of systemctl status mariadb shows the following:

  May 15 09:34:50 server.example.com systemd[1]: Starting MariaDB 10.5.25 database server...
  May 15 09:34:51 server.example.com systemd[1]: mariadb.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=218/CAPABILITIES
  May 15 09:34:51 server.example.com systemd[1]: Failed to start MariaDB 10.5.25 database server.
  May 15 09:34:51 server.example.com systemd[1]: Unit mariadb.service entered failed state.
  May 15 09:34:51 server.example.com systemd[1]: mariadb.service failed.

• Yum log /var/log/yum.log shows a recent update:

  May 15 03:30:58 Updated: MariaDB-common-10.5.25-1.el7.centos.x86_64
  May 15 03:30:58 Updated: MariaDB-compat-10.5.25-1.el7.centos.x86_64
  May 15 03:31:02 Updated: MariaDB-client-10.5.25-1.el7.centos.x86_64
  May 15 03:31:04 Updated: galera-4-26.4.18-1.el7.centos.x86_64
  May 15 03:31:22 Updated: MariaDB-server-10.5.25-1.el7.centos.x86_64
  May 15 03:31:22 Updated: MariaDB-shared-10.5.25-1.el7.centos.x86_64

Cause

Outdated kernel incompatibility with systemd unit functionality used by MariaDB starting from recent 10.5 update and above.

# [root@plesk my.cnf.d]# uname -a
Linux hostname 3.10.0-327.28.3.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Aug 18 19:05:49 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Resolution

1. Connect to the server via SSH

2. Update the kernel via the package manager.

   # yum update -y

Alternatively, if the kernel cannot be updated at the present moment, a workaround can be used: