When tmp is cleared as part of startup, elasticsearch fails as it starts before tmp is cleared and the files it creates are cleaned. A snippet from my jail console log: Starting elasticsearch. warning: no-jdk distributions that do not bundle a JDK are deprecated and will be removed in a future release warning: no-jdk distributions that do not bundle a JDK are deprecated and will be removed in a future release Clearing /tmp. Updating motd:. Updating /var/run/os-release done. Starting cron. Mon 5 Apr 2021 04:58:08 UTC ERROR: Temporary file directory [/tmp/elasticsearch-17482280046379505908] does not exist or is not accessible FIX: Changing rc.d/elasticsearch to include "cleartmp": # REQUIRE: NETWORKING SERVERS cleartmp