'service luci start' produces error "Unable to create the luci base configuration file (`/var/lib/luci/etc/luci.ini')." in a RHEL 6 High Availability cluster

Issue

• When I try to start luci, it gives an error that it could not create the luci base configuration file

# service luci start
Unable to create the luci base configuration file (`/var/lib/luci/etc/luci.ini').
Start luci...       

• service luci start fails, and /var/log/luci/luci.log shows an error and traceback

  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/luci", line 3, in <module>
    execfile("/usr/bin/paster")
  File "/usr/bin/paster", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('PasteScript==1.7.3', 'console_scripts', 'paster')()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/script/command.py", line 84, in run
    invoke(command, command_name, options, args[1:])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/script/command.py", line 123, in invoke
    exit_code = runner.run(args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/script/command.py", line 218, in run
    result = self.command()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/script/serve.py", line 274, in command
    relative_to=base, global_conf=vars)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/script/serve.py", line 308, in loadserver
    relative_to=relative_to, **kw)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 210, in loadserver
    return loadobj(SERVER, uri, name=name, **kw)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 224, in loadobj
    global_conf=global_conf)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 248, in loadcontext
    global_conf=global_conf)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 278, in _loadconfig
    return loader.get_context(object_type, name, global_conf)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 363, in get_context
    object_type, name=name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/paste/deploy/loadwsgi.py", line 528, in find_config_section
    self.filename))
LookupError: No section 'init' (prefixed by 'server') found in config /var/lib/luci/etc/luci.ini
Removing PID file /var/run/luci/luci.pid