title: Error on neo4j server start on arch linux
body: <p>I have an arch linux setup and installed neo4j through the arch user repository (<code>yaourt -S neo4j</code>), and I'm able to run the web console fine (<code>sudo neo4j console</code> with seemingly normal output and full functionality), however when trying to start the server (<code>sudo neo4j start</code>), I encounter the following error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/usr/share/neo4j/bin/utils: line 345: [: -lt: unary operator expected
  Using additional JVM arguments:  -server -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -Dorg.neo4j.server.properties=/etc/neo4j/neo4j-server.properties -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/etc/neo4j/logging.properties -Dlog4j.configuration=file:/etc/neo4j/log4j.properties -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled
  Starting Neo4j Server...cat: /run/neo4j/neo4j-service.pid: No such file or directory
  process []... waiting for server to be ready. Failed to start within 120 seconds.
  Neo4j Server may have failed to start, please check the logs.
  rm: cannot remove ‘/run/neo4j/neo4j-service.pid’: No such file or directory
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>There's no delay before the error message is printed, so it seems to be something other than the timeout. I'm quite new to neo4j (I worked through a fair bit of the user manual using the web console, but no development or server config experience), so I'm not really sure what else might be relevant. I tried looking through the utils script and the error appears to be where it attempts to <code>su neo4j</code>, but it also seems to proceed to attempt to start the server. I also tried changing the port it's starting on as in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24321306/unable-to-start-neo4j-server-2-1-2">this question</a>, but no change. The only log I can find just has this over and over (with appropriate timestamps):</p>
  
  <pre><code>Oct 15, 2014 1:33:49 AM com.sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl _initiate
  INFO: Initiating Jersey application, version 'Jersey: 1.9 09/02/2011 11:17 AM'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any help at all would be appreciated!</p>
  
  <p>EDIT:
  The line 345 that it's failing on is the end of this snippet:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if [ $UID == 0 ] ; then
    OPEN_FILES=`su $NEO4J_USER -c "ulimit -n"`
  else
    OPEN_FILES=`ulimit -n`
  fi    
  if [ $OPEN_FILES -lt 40000 ]; then
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>From doing some echo debugging, it seems that <code>su $NEO4J_USER</code> is failing, probably because $NEO4J_USER is set to neo4j, a user that does not exist on my system. I tried setting that to root in one of the config files, but evidently that's not working properly. Arch is a continual learning experience for me, but I've not had to add a new user before to get software working.</p>