# startController is not working.

**URL:** <https://openziti.discourse.group/t/startcontroller-is-not-working/932>\
**Category:** Ziti Overlay\
**Created:** [December 9, 2022, 7:25pm UTC](https://openziti.discourse.group/t/startcontroller-is-not-working/932 "2022-12-09T19:25:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![schinatsu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@schinatsu](https://openziti.discourse.group/u/schinatsu)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 7:25pm UTC](https://openziti.discourse.group/t/startcontroller-is-not-working/932/1 "2022-12-09T19:25:15Z")

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Could you please tell me about it?  
It did not work after reading the instructions and typing the starter router command.  
It did not work even if I changed the variables in the env file and read them in with the source command.  
What is the cause?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![TheLumberjack](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/openziti.discourse.group/thelumberjack/32/113_2.png) [@TheLumberjack](https://openziti.discourse.group/u/TheLumberjack)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://openziti.discourse.group/t/startcontroller-is-not-working/932/2 "2022-12-09T19:31:36Z")

</div>

Hi @schinatsu, welcome to the community. the `startController` function is just a small helper that does these commands:

```auto
function startController {
  log_file="${ZITI_HOME-}/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_RAWNAME}.log"
  # shellcheck disable=SC2034
  "${ZITI_BIN_DIR-}/ziti-controller" run "${ZITI_HOME_OS_SPECIFIC}/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_RAWNAME}.yaml" &> "${log_file}" &
  ZITI_EXPRESS_CONTROLLER_PID=$!
  echo -e "ziti-controller started as process id: $ZITI_EXPRESS_CONTROLLER_PID. log located at: $(BLUE "${log_file}")"
}

```

You can see, it's just running this single command:

```auto
"${ZITI_BIN_DIR-}/ziti-controller" run "${ZITI_HOME_OS_SPECIFIC}/${ZITI_EDGE_CONTROLLER_RAWNAME}.yaml" &> "${log_file}"

```

## some things to check:

- can you run "${ZITI\_BIN\_DIR-}/ziti-controller"? Does that executable execute properly?
- is there a file located at "${ZITI\_HOME\_OS\_SPECIFIC}/${ZITI\_EDGE\_CONTROLLER\_RAWNAME}.yaml"?
- the log file it redirects to is located at "${log\_file}". Is there any error in that file?

Can you look to see if a log was created, and if there's anything in the log that looks like an error?

You could try to just run the `ziti-controller` binary with the yaml as a parameter. For example, on my local computer that looks like this:

```auto
$ /home/cd/.ziti/quickstart/sg3/ziti-bin/ziti-v0.26.11/ziti-controller run /home/cd/.ziti/quickstart/sg3/sg3.yaml

```