"Unable to start service sas-viya-ops-agent-default: Unit sas-viya-ops-agent-default.service not found" occurs in SAS® Viya® 3.5


An Ansible playbook might fail in a SAS Viya deployment with an error that indicates that the sas-viya-ops-agent-default service cannot be started because the systemd unit is not found.

This issue occurs on Linux-based SAS Viya deployments when RPM sas-evmcltsvcs version 1.6.13-20260323 is installed.

Symptoms of this issue include the following:

When this issue occurs, the following error is displayed:

Unable to start service sas-viya-ops-agent-default: Failed to start sas-viya-ops-agent-default.service: Unit sas-viya-ops-agent-default.service not found.

Note that a similar error occurs for the sas-viya-watch-log-default and sas-viya-alert-track-default services.

Cause

This issue is caused by RPM sas-evmcltsvcs-1.6.13-20260323.

In this version, required service scripts might be installed without the correct executable permissions. As a result, systemd is unable to recognize or start the sas-viya-ops-agent-default.service unit when invoked by Ansible.

Workaround

Method 1: Apply the Hot Fix (Recommended)

A hot fix is available for sas-evmcltsvcs-1.6.13-20260323 that corrects the service permission issue.

Apply the hot fix using standard SAS hot fix installation procedures. Then, re-run the Ansible playbook.

Method 2: Manually Correct the Service Permissions

Complete this workaround only if you cannot apply the hot fix immediately.

  1. On each host in the SAS Viya deployment, update permissions on the affected service scripts:

    sudo chmod 755 sas-viya-watch-log-default \
                   sas-viya-ops-agent-default \
                   sas-viya-alert-track-default

  2. Reload systemd:

    sudo systemctl daemon-reload

  3. Re-run the Ansible playbook.

Additional Information

How to Confirm the RPM Version

To verify whether the affected RPM version is installed, run the following command on the SAS Viya host:

rpm -q sas-evmcltsvcs

Here is an example output:

sas-evmcltsvcs-1.6.13-20260323.x86_64

If version 1.6.13-20260323 is installed, the system is affected and should be remediated by applying the hot fix or completing the documented workaround.