diff --git a/.github/workflows/server-tests.yml b/.github/workflows/server-tests.yml
index f034a8c44e..c503bacf90 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/server-tests.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/server-tests.yml
@@ -77,6 +77,7 @@ jobs:
         if: inputs.backend == 'rocksdb'
         run: |
           "$TRAVIS_DIR/test-wait-storage.sh"
+          "$TRAVIS_DIR/test-start-server.sh"
           "$TRAVIS_DIR/test-riscv64-java-runtime.sh"
           bash "$TRAVIS_DIR/test-tinkerpop-reports.sh"
 
diff --git a/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/start-server.sh b/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/start-server.sh
index b7b70e8cc9..05bf87e9c9 100755
--- a/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/start-server.sh
+++ b/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/start-server.sh
@@ -42,6 +42,15 @@ function sed_in_place() {
     esac
 }
 
+# run-api-test.sh starts the Server twice on the same configuration, and a
+# key appended twice is read back as a list, so append each line only once
+function append_once() {
+    local line=$1
+    local file=$2
+
+    grep -qxF "$line" "$file" || echo "$line" >> "$file"
+}
+
 case "$BACKEND" in
     memory)
         SERIALIZER=text
@@ -64,18 +73,18 @@ write_property "$CONF" "serializer" "$SERIALIZER"
 
 # Set timeout for hbase
 if [ "$BACKEND" == "hbase" ]; then
-    echo "restserver.request_timeout=200" >> $REST_CONF
-    echo "gremlinserver.timeout=200" >> $REST_CONF
+    append_once "restserver.request_timeout=200" "$REST_CONF"
+    append_once "gremlinserver.timeout=200" "$REST_CONF"
     sed_in_place 's/evaluationTimeout.*/evaluationTimeout: 200000/' "$GREMLIN_CONF"
 fi
 
 # Set usePD=true for hstore
 if [ "$BACKEND" == "hstore" ]; then
-    echo "usePD=true" >> $REST_CONF
+    append_once "usePD=true" "$REST_CONF"
 fi
 
 # Append schema.sync_deletion=true to config file
-echo "schema.sync_deletion=true" >> $CONF
+append_once "schema.sync_deletion=true" "$CONF"
 
 JACOCO_OPTION=""
 if [ -n "$JACOCO_PORT" ]; then
diff --git a/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/test-start-server.sh b/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/test-start-server.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..fa9f1b2858
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hugegraph-server/hugegraph-dist/src/assembly/travis/test-start-server.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+# contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+# this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+# The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+# (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+# the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+#
+# Verifies that start-server.sh can run twice on one configuration, as
+# run-api-test.sh does: the second start must leave the config unchanged and
+# each line the script appends must be there exactly once, since a key set
+# twice is read back as a list (usePD as '[true, true]').
+
+set -uo pipefail
+
+SCRIPT_DIR=$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)
+START_SERVER="${1:-${SCRIPT_DIR}/start-server.sh}"
+STATIC_DIR=$(cd "${SCRIPT_DIR}/../static" && pwd)
+TMP_DIR=$(mktemp -d "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/start-server-test.XXXXXX")
+FAILURES=0
+
+trap 'rm -rf "${TMP_DIR}"' EXIT
+
+fail() {
+    echo "FAIL: $1" >&2
+    FAILURES=$((FAILURES + 1))
+}
+
+start_server() {
+    if ! bash "$START_SERVER" "$server_dir" "$backend" > "${TMP_DIR}/start.log" 2>&1; then
+        cat "${TMP_DIR}/start.log" >&2
+        fail "${backend}: start-server.sh exited non-zero"
+        return 1
+    fi
+}
+
+# The lines that set the key must be exactly key=value, or none if value is empty
+assert_key() {
+    local file=$1 key=$2 value=$3 actual
+    actual=$(awk -v prefix="${key}=" 'index($0, prefix) == 1' "$file" | paste -sd ' ' -)
+    [[ "$actual" == "${value:+${key}=${value}}" ]] ||
+        fail "${backend}: ${file##*/} has '${actual}' for ${key}, expected '${value:+${key}=${value}}'"
+}
+
+if [[ ! -f "$START_SERVER" ]]; then
+    echo "ERROR: start script not found: $START_SERVER"
+    exit 2
+fi
+
+for backend in hstore hbase rocksdb memory; do
+    # A copy of the packaged files, with the backend initialization and the
+    # Server launch stubbed
+    server_dir="${TMP_DIR}/${backend}"
+    mkdir -p "${server_dir}/bin" "${server_dir}/conf/graphs"
+    cp "${STATIC_DIR}/bin/util.sh" "${server_dir}/bin/"
+    cp "${STATIC_DIR}/conf/rest-server.properties" "${STATIC_DIR}/conf/gremlin-server.yaml" "${server_dir}/conf/"
+    cp "${STATIC_DIR}/conf/graphs/hugegraph.properties" "${server_dir}/conf/graphs/"
+    printf '#!/bin/bash\ncat >/dev/null\n' > "${server_dir}/bin/init-store.sh"
+    printf '#!/bin/bash\n' > "${server_dir}/bin/start-hugegraph.sh"
+    chmod +x "${server_dir}/bin/init-store.sh" "${server_dir}/bin/start-hugegraph.sh"
+
+    start_server || continue
+    cp -R "${server_dir}/conf" "${TMP_DIR}/${backend}-first-start"
+    start_server || continue
+    (cd "$TMP_DIR" && diff -ru "${backend}-first-start" "${backend}/conf") >&2 ||
+        fail "${backend}: the second start changed the config as shown above"
+
+    use_pd=""
+    hbase_timeout=""
+    case "$backend" in
+        hstore) use_pd=true ;;
+        hbase) hbase_timeout=200 ;;
+    esac
+    rest_conf="${server_dir}/conf/rest-server.properties"
+    assert_key "$rest_conf" usePD "$use_pd"
+    assert_key "$rest_conf" restserver.request_timeout "$hbase_timeout"
+    assert_key "$rest_conf" gremlinserver.timeout "$hbase_timeout"
+    assert_key "${server_dir}/conf/graphs/hugegraph.properties" schema.sync_deletion true
+done
+
+if [[ "$FAILURES" -gt 0 ]]; then
+    echo "FAIL: ${FAILURES} check(s) failed after two starts" >&2
+    exit 1
+fi
+
+echo "PASS: start-server.sh run twice sets each config line once for hstore, hbase, rocksdb and memory"