TinyDNS service not able to start in v2.2.3-RELEASE

Itwerx

Yes, some of this is definitely PBI related. I added a few notes to the Redmine ticket (thanks for that!)

tinyDNS is removed from the system in question and BIND is installed. What I'm trying to do is get zone transfers into BIND from a different pfSense box which is still running tinyDNS, (with no problems).

Itwerx

I did try massaging the tinyDNS UI output into BIND zone file format and putting that into the zone's custom text field, but it seems to ignore them. Guess I'll have to write a script to spit out XML for the config file. Ugh…

ecce

@Itwerx:

Which makes me wonder if the simple fix above of installing svscan manually is actually a bad idea? TinyDNS certainly has a different config in the pfSense environment, pulling in a bog standard FreeBSD copy of svscan might not actually work? (At least under 2.2.3?)

Hi,
now that I have read this and something about PBI, I too started digging deeper. The tinydns actually seems to come with an own version of svscan living in: /usr/pbi/djbdns-amd64/local/bin
So I did a "pkg remove daemontools" and edited /usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh replacing all calls to daemontools binaries with the correct paths and added the directory to the search path in the script. Here's my diff:

11c11
< command="/usr/local/bin/svscan"
---
> command="/usr/pbi/djbdns-amd64/local/bin/svscan"
27,28c27,28
<         PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin \
<         /usr/sbin/daemon -f /bin/sh -c "$command $svscan_servicedir 2>&1 | /usr/local/bin/multilog t $logdir" > /dev/null
---
>         PATH=/usr/pbi/djbdns-amd64/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin \
>         /usr/sbin/daemon -f /bin/sh -c "$command $svscan_servicedir 2>&1 | /usr/pbi/djbdns-amd64/local/bin/multilog t $logdir" > /dev/null
34c34
<         find -L "$svscan_servicedir" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 2 -type d \( \! -path "$svscan_servicedir/*/*" -or -name 'log' \) -print0 | xargs -0 /usr/local/bin/svc -dx
---
>         find -L "$svscan_servicedir" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 2 -type d \( \! -path "$svscan_servicedir/*/*" -or -name 'log' \) -print0 | xargs -0 /usr/pbi/djbdns-amd64/local/bin/svc -dx

This also seems to fix the "missing svscan". I am not sure if this fixes the memory leaks or the axfr issues you described.

Since I have also read the other comments on this thread and also came across this http://samiam.org/blog/20110103.html and this http://pjp.dgplug.org/djbdns/index.html (a still-maintained linux-only fork of djbdns), and since all together this gives me the impression that the tinydns package has no maintainer on pfsense and that it seems to be only luck how long it will continue to work, I also started looking into alternatives.

I used to use tinydns for its failover IP capabilities - to redirect clients to the correct IP in multi-WAN failover scenarios and for having a DNS failover with multiple web servers (no, BGP is not an option ;)). Any ideas on how to do this with pfsense in a different way?
For now I have only found this solution: http://www.freebsdwiki.net/index.php/BIND%2C_dynamic_DNS%2C_failover_A_records

Sorry for hijacking this thread in the last paragraph.

Marc

Itwerx

Dagnabbit, you're tempting me to give it another go! The monitoring and failover is a big plus for us as well. :/

doktornotor

https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense-packages/pull/909

pukes on PBI.

Itwerx

https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense-packages/pull/909

Did you have a chance to give it any review or was the github just to get it in there for further development…?

doktornotor

@Itwerx:

https://github.com/pfsense/pfsense-packages/pull/909

Did you have a chance to give it any review or was the github just to get it in there for further development…?

It's been "sitting" there for 2 days. Give it some time to get reviewed and merged…

Itwerx

It's been "sitting" there for 2 days. Give it some time to get reviewed and merged…

Yes, of course, wasn't impugning the process. Just figured if it had been given further review and was considered a valid patch, (not still missing paths or whatever), then I would go ahead and test it out and report back my results. (Conversely if it's known to be incomplete than I'd wait.) - Thanks!

doktornotor

I don't plan on changing anything there unless required. If you want to test it, probably the best way is to paste relevant parts into http(s)://<pfs_ip_or_fqdn>/exec.php


	$pf_version=substr(trim(file_get_contents("/etc/version")),0,3);
	if ($pf_version == "2.2") {
		$svscan_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/local/bin/svscan";
		$svc_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/local/bin/svc";
		$tinydns_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/local/bin";
	} else if ($pf_version == "2.1") {
		$svscan_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/bin/svscan";
		$svc_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/bin/svc";
		$tinydns_path = "/usr/pbi/djbdns-" . php_uname("m") . "/bin";
	} else {
		$svscan_path = "/usr/local/bin/svscan";
		$svc_path = "/usr/local/bin/svc";
		$tinydns_path = "/usr/local/bin";
	}
	$svscan = <<<eod<br>#!/bin/sh
# PROVIDE: svscan
# REQUIRE: LOGIN
# KEYWORD: FreeBSD
. /etc/rc.subr
name="svscan"
rcvar="\${name}_enable"
command="{$svscan_path}"
svscan_enable=\${svscan_enable-"YES"}
svscan_servicedir=\${svscan_servicedir-"{$g['varrun_path']}/service"}
logdir="/var/log/svscan"
start_cmd="svscan_start"
stop_postcmd="svscan_stop_post"
load_rc_config \$name
required_dirs="\${svscan_servicedir}"
svscan_start () {
        echo "Starting svscan."
        mkdir -p \$logdir
        /usr/bin/env \
        PATH={$tinydns_path}:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin \
        /usr/sbin/daemon -f /bin/sh -c "\$command \$svscan_servicedir 2>&1 | /usr/local/bin/multilog t \$logdir" > /dev/null
EOD;
if ($enableipmonitoring) {
	$svscan .= <<<eod<br>/usr/local/bin/minicron {$refreshinterval} {$g['varrun_path']}/ping_hosts.pid "/usr/local/bin/ping_hosts.sh"
EOD;
}
$svscan .= <<<eod<br>}
svscan_stop_post () {
        echo "Stopping svscan."
        find -L "\$svscan_servicedir" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 2 -type d \( \! -path "\$svscan_servicedir/*/*" -or -name 'log' \) -print0 | xargs -0 {$svc_path} -dx
		/bin/pkill -F /var/run/ping_hosts.pid
}
run_rc_command "\$1"
EOD;

	fwrite($fd, $svscan);
	fclose($fd);</eod<br></eod<br></eod<br>

After that, make a backup and replace /usr/local/pkg/tinydns.inc with the fixed one.</pfs_ip_or_fqdn>

ecce

Thank you, Doktor!

For sending a patch in the right direction, and for posting a How-To how we can try it.

Worked out with minor additions in your above posted code:

an additional line break here:

       /usr/local/bin/minicron {$refreshinterval} {$g['varrun_path']}/ping_hosts.pid "/usr/local/bin/ping_hosts.sh"
EOD;
}
$svscan .= <<<eod<br>--->>>line break here<<<---
}
svscan_stop_post () {</eod<br>

an additional line before fwrite (had to instant-teach myself a little bit php for this :)):

$fd=fopen("/usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh","w");

and after that edit /usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh and remove all ^M chars at the end of the line. (yes, I know…windoze)

Again, thanks!
Marc

doktornotor

@ecce:

and after that edit /usr/local/etc/rc.d/svscan.sh and remove all ^M chars at the end of the line. (yes, I know…windoze)


sed -i "s/.$//g" /some/file

Itwerx

Am I correct in assuming this snippet of code is sufficiently self-contained that it can go pretty much anywhere in exec.php, (not literally of course, being careful not to break existing syntax)…?

doktornotor

PR merged, no longer needed to mess with anything manually.

Itwerx

Thanks Doc, that was fast!

I did a reinstall on the package, and while I don't see any of the new svscan stuff in the exec.php I am happy to report that it seems to be running properly now. Woohoo! Much rockage! :P

ecce

Yes, can confirm that - installed it on a system which didn't have anything to do with tinydns before, configured basic settings, started svscan and that was it!

Yay!
;D

doktornotor

Thanks for testing. ;)