@ubuntusrv02:/var/log$ tail -f syslog

Oct 19 11:14:40 ubuntusrv02 kernel: [860524.972567] init: sphinxsearch main process (25847) terminated with status 1
Oct 19 11:14:40 ubuntusrv02 kernel: [860524.972575] init: sphinxsearch main process ended, respawning
Oct 19 11:14:40 ubuntusrv02 kernel: [860524.978538] init: sphinxsearch main process (25851) terminated with status 1
Oct 19 11:14:40 ubuntusrv02 kernel: [860524.978544] init: sphinxsearch respawning too fast, stopped

@ubuntusrv02:/var/log$ ls -la
total 23944
drwxrwxrwx 6 root syslog 4096 Oct 19 06:29.
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jul 5 12:10…
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 1 06:45 alternatives.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 432 Oct 1 06:44 alternatives.log.1
drwxrwxrwx 2 www-data www-data 4096 Oct 18 06:54 apache2
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Oct 1 06:45 apt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 1 06:45 aptitude
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 455 Sep 21 15:05 aptitude.1.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 7099731 Oct 19 11:16 auth.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 11589106 Oct 18 06:54 auth.log.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 323171 Oct 11 06:31 auth.log.2.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5212 Oct 9 12:33 boot.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root adm 93674 Oct 9 12:33 dmesg
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root adm 92461 Oct 9 09:20 dmesg.0
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root adm 18861 Oct 9 09:16 dmesg.1.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root adm 18744 Oct 9 04:48 dmesg.2.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Oct 9 04:48 dmesg.3.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15442 Oct 16 06:28 dpkg.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 53653 Oct 1 06:44 dpkg.log.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 188447 Oct 19 11:13 kern.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 1491129 Oct 18 06:52 kern.log.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 115379 Oct 11 06:26 kern.log.2.gz
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Sep 17 12:05 landscape
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 292876 Oct 19 10:43 lastlog
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 3423 Oct 18 08:21 mail.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 16393 Oct 16 10:47 mail.log.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 530 Oct 9 17:36 mail.log.2.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Sep 21 15:05 memcached.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 430557 Oct 19 11:14 redis_6379.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 128787 Oct 19 11:16 syslog
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 385946 Oct 19 06:29 syslog.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 29207 Oct 18 06:54 syslog.2.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 30603 Oct 17 06:33 syslog.3.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 31013 Oct 16 06:28 syslog.4.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 32320 Oct 15 06:31 syslog.5.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 29900 Oct 14 06:36 syslog.6.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 46523 Oct 13 06:47 syslog.7.gz
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 392824 Oct 9 12:33 udev
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 188447 Oct 19 11:13 ufw.log
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 1477833 Oct 18 06:52 ufw.log.1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 syslog adm 34000 Oct 11 06:26 ufw.log.2.gz
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Oct 16 06:28 unattended-upgrades

p.s. 0777 сделал на случай, если сфинксу прав не хватает на запись логов. было как-то похожее.
Пробовал сделать dpkg-reconfigure sphinxsearch

@ubuntusrv02:/var/log$ indexer -v
Sphinx 2.2.9-id64-release (rel22-r5006)
Copyright © 2001-2015, Andrew Aksyonoff
Copyright © 2008-2015, Sphinx Technologies Inc (http://sphinxsearch.com)

log = /var/log/sphinxsearch/searchd.log
query_log = /var/log/sphinxsearch/query.log
pid_file = /var/run/sphinxsearch/searchd.pid