cloudstack-usage fails after fresh 4.22.0.0 install on Ubuntu 24.04 because /etc/cloudstack/usage/key is missing

[Eddi1306]

I am running a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 LTS host and installed Apache CloudStack Management Server 4.22.0.0 following the official quick installation guide.

https://docs.cloudstack.apache.org/en/4.22.0.0/quickinstallationguide/qig.html

After installing the CloudStack packages, I noticed the following:

root@server:~# service cloudstack-usage status
● cloudstack-usage.service - CloudStack Usage Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/cloudstack-usage.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2026-05-26 16:05:18 CEST; 5s ago
Docs: http://www.cloudstack.org/
Process: 2443 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/cloudstack-common/scripts/installer/pre-check.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 2469 ExecStart=/bin/sh -ec /usr/bin/java -Dpid=${JAVA_PID} $JAVA_OPTS $JAVA_DEBUG -cp $CLASSPATH $JAVA_CLASS (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 2469 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CPU: 5.738s

Log file:

Caused by: com.cloud.utils.exception.CloudRuntimeException: key File containing secret key not found in the classpath:
at com.cloud.utils.crypt.EncryptionSecretKeyChecker.check(EncryptionSecretKeyChecker.java:80)
at com.cloud.utils.db.DbProperties.getDbProperties(DbProperties.java:80)
at com.cloud.utils.db.TransactionLegacy.(TransactionLegacy.java:1025)

The cloudstack-usage demon is not running properly due to missing decryption key for the database.

You can see here that the key has been created properly:

root@server:/etc/cloudstack/management# ll
total 88
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 26 16:04 ./
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 26 15:29 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20976 Nov 7 2025 config.json
-rw-r----- 1 root cloud 4789 May 26 16:04 db.properties
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22806 Nov 7 2025 ehcache.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 981 Nov 7 2025 environment.properties
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 931 Nov 7 2025 java.security.ciphers
-rw-r----- 1 root cloud 8 May 26 16:04 key
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5338 Nov 7 2025 log4j-cloud.xml
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 May 26 15:29 log4j2.xml -> /etc/cloudstack/management/log4j-cloud.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2390 Nov 7 2025 server.properties

Here you can see that there is no symlink:

root@server:/etc/cloudstack/usage# ll
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 26 15:29 ./
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 26 15:29 ../
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 May 26 15:29 db.properties -> /etc/cloudstack/management/db.properties
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2396 Nov 7 2025 log4j-cloud.xml

I was able to fix this issue with creating a symlink for the key:

ln -s /etc/cloudstack/management/key /etc/cloudstack/usage/key

systemctl restart cloudstack-usage

root@server:/etc/cloudstack/usage# service cloudstack-usage status
● cloudstack-usage.service - CloudStack Usage Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/cloudstack-usage.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2026-05-26 16:09:25 CEST; 5s ago
Docs: http://www.cloudstack.org/
Process: 4860 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/cloudstack-common/scripts/installer/pre-check.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 4883 (sh)
Tasks: 29 (limit: 976)
Memory: 149.1M (peak: 155.1M)
CPU: 7.956s
CGroup: /system.slice/cloudstack-usage.service
├─4883 /bin/sh -ec "/usr/bin/java -Dpid=$$ $JAVA_OPTS $JAVA_DEBUG -cp $CLASSPATH $JAVA_CLASS"
└─4884 /usr/bin/java -Dpid=4883 -Xms256m -Xmx2048m --add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED -cp "/usr/share/cloudstack-usage/:/usr/share/cloudstack-usage/lib/:/usr/share/c>

May 26 16:09:25 server.local systemd[1]: Starting cloudstack-usage.service - CloudStack Usage Server...
May 26 16:09:25 server.local systemd[1]: Started cloudstack-usage.service - CloudStack Usage Server.
lines 1-15/15 (END)

Is this a known issue/bug in cloudstack version 4.22.0.0 ? Did anyone encounter the same issue?