Unbound seems to be restarting frequently
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I enabled both the Harden Glue and Harden DNSSEC data options (it looks like these are best practices that should be enabled by default). However, this does not appear to have an effect on the unbound restart behavior. I've observed that even if unbound is acting somewhat stable and not restarting on every DHCPREQUEST, the following sequence by dhcpd appears to always trigger a restart:
Mar 4 12:25:17 dhcpd: Wrote 22 leases to leases file.
Mar 4 12:25:17 dhcpd: Wrote 0 new dynamic host decls to leases file.
Mar 4 12:25:17 dhcpd: Wrote 0 deleted host decls to leases file.This seems to happen on a regular basis, perhaps hourly based on the logs. I'm guessing this is a routine operation of dhcpd, although I don't know if unbound's expected behavior is to also restart as part of this operation.
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Those defaults are already being changed for next release I believe - because they matter…
That's interesting - so I can select Harden Glue and Harden DNSSEC data in Advanced settings without actually Enabling DNSSEC in General Settings? Seems a little odd to me…
Maybe I should also check Enable DNSSEC although it doesn't seem to be required by the interface?
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I haven't tried without selecting DNSSEC since it doesn't make much sense, but if you can click that strange combo of buttons, I'd call that a bug. haha
Not sure if we should call it a user bug or interface bug (-;
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I agree, it doesn't make any sense to do that but the interface does allow it - and probably shouldn't but I have not idea what the logic is behind the GUI. From a human interface POV there's just too many boxes to check on unbound.
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x.y.z versions of pfsense are usually very well sorted out.
the ones with just x.y (2 digits) usually pretty solid but still being polished abit.
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I haven't tried without selecting DNSSEC since it doesn't make much sense, but if you can click that strange combo of buttons, I'd call that a bug. haha
Not sure if we should call it a user bug or interface bug (-;
It doesn't make Unbound fail to function, so not really a big deal. Still, I added input validation to prevent enabling that option if DNSSEC support isn't enabled.
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Those defaults are already being changed for next release I believe - because they matter…
The only default we're changing is hard coding harden-glue to yes. That checkbox is gone in 2.2.1, and the config.xml setting ignored if it exists.
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From a human interface POV there's just too many boxes to check on unbound.
I agree there's a lot there. It has a lot of options. We either have a ton of boxes, or force people to use manual configuration in the advanced box which is error-prone and could break on upgrade where the checkboxes won't. We'll be putting out guidance on usage that should help clarify things.
Make sure harden glue is enabled (on 2.2 and earlier), and defaults are otherwise fine. You don't have to be pushing buttons there unless you have atypical needs (mostly very large networks).
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I have only been observing for about 5 hours after upgrading to 2.2.1, but it appears the frequent unbound restarts triggered by DHCP may be resolved with the latest update. Unbound has not restarted since the update, even during routine DHCP events like writes to the leases file that previously triggered it. Perhaps it is something that was updated in pfSense 2.2.1 or perhaps there was a change with unbound 1.5.3, but I would suggest that anyone who has been reporting unbound instability try the new version.
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It's still restarting as soon as you change anything in the resolver settings or change the DNS addresses from general setup. It's not restarting if you don't touch any settings after a reboot….go figure.
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I like the number of boxes and options. I'd rather be intimidated by options than limited.
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When I upgraded to the current 2.2 release from the previous version I switched to using unbound but I've been finding that it stops working ever now and then - suddenly nothing on the network resolves. Manually restarting unbound fixes this … until the next time. I've just switched back to dnsmasq on my work system and rebooted in the hope that this will fix it.
I'm seeing this both on my work system and on my home firewall too. Looking at the status display it seems that unbound is still working - it doesn't show up as stopped, it just doesn't work. Sorry if these notes aren't very helpful but there does seem to be an issue here.
edmund
Thank you for posting that. It is very helpful to me. ;D
I was running 2.2 x64 on a dell 780 and 620 for a few months without issue. After adding a LAN gateway and creating an asymmetric routing issue that was resolved with forum help I moved to two check point U10s with 2.2 i386 6 days ago so I could use the third nic to implement the gateway correctly. Since then I have had to restart Unbound DNS Resolver every couple of days or so. As you said "it doesn't show up as stopped, it just doesn't work".
I am now Select Harden Glue and Harden DNSSEC data!!! We will see if this fixes my issue.. -
I had this problem a few days ago as well. I am using the current 2.2.1 release as well.
What fixed the problem was to check the following in the DNS Resolver: Advanced settings:- Hide Identity
- Hide Version
Any ideas as to why this would work?
Also i noticed that after I did this I was no longer getting strange messages in my DHCP log complaining about incorrect length of DHCP headers (UDP I think). I no longer have these logs because the log has cycled and they are no longer there.Could BandwidthD be doing something that Unbound does not like?
I get messages on my dynamic IPs in BandwidthD that say "xxx.xxx.xxx.103 - Configure DNS to reverse this IP". My static IPs are reversed with no problems.
I have Register DHCP leases in the DNS Resolver checked as well as Register DHCP static mappings in the DNS Resolver checked. If I understand correctly those should let BandwidthD resolve all the IPs on my network.Thanks.
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I had this problem a few days ago as well. I am using the current 2.2.1 release as well.
What fixed the problem was to check the following in the DNS Resolver: Advanced settings:- Hide Identity
- Hide Version
Any ideas as to why this would work?
Also i noticed that after I did this I was no longer getting strange messages in my DHCP log complaining about incorrect length of DHCP headers (UDP I think).It wouldn't change anything, that's a coincidence. Hide identity and hide version have no impact on a typical running resolver and are very simple options that wouldn't cause any issues. Something else changed around the same time that fixed the issue. The DHCP log complaints are probably a good lead, if you start having issues again, start a new thread describing the issue and include those logs.
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Here's another thread: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=88240.0 of the same exact issue.
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I have the same issue. Is it somehow related to static dhcp mappings or DNS overrides? That's the only non-standard thing I'm doing.
Not only do I get frequent restarts, but also all kinds of errors several times per day. Such as "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN" and timeouts.
As it is, DNS Resolver is not usable - is it OK to use Forwarder instead of Resolver? Not entirely sure what the difference is, really.
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is it OK to use Forwarder instead of Resolver?
Forwarder (dnsmasq) is fine to use. It is just a program that forwards DNS requests from clients to the specified upstream DNS server/s, gives the replies back to the clients and caches the replies so it can respond quicker when asked for the resolution of the same name again. The upstream DNS server/s do the real resolution process - so you rely on those to "do the right thing" for you.
Resolver (unbound) can be put in forwarding mode, in which case it does similar stuff to Forwarder (surprise!). In resolver mode it resolves names by going to the DNS root servers and following the chain, asking ".com" then "company.com" then "xyz.company.com" all the way down until it finally gets the name resolution from the DNS server that is really the one for that name.
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I see.
I use pfSense as a DNS server though, so I can resolve statically mapped DHCP clients on the LAN. If it can't resolve locally, it goes to 8.8.8.8.
Can DNS Forwarder do the same?
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Yes
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When I upgraded to the current 2.2 release from the previous version I switched to using unbound but I've been finding that it stops working ever now and then - suddenly nothing on the network resolves. Manually restarting unbound fixes this … until the next time. I've just switched back to dnsmasq on my work system and rebooted in the hope that this will fix it.
I'm seeing this both on my work system and on my home firewall too. Looking at the status display it seems that unbound is still working - it doesn't show up as stopped, it just doesn't work. Sorry if these notes aren't very helpful but there does seem to be an issue here.
edmund
Thank you for posting that. It is very helpful to me. ;D
I was running 2.2 x64 on a dell 780 and 620 for a few months without issue. After adding a LAN gateway and creating an asymmetric routing issue that was resolved with forum help I moved to two check point U10s with 2.2 i386 6 days ago so I could use the third nic to implement the gateway correctly. Since then I have had to restart Unbound DNS Resolver every couple of days or so. As you said "it doesn't show up as stopped, it just doesn't work".
I am now Select Harden Glue and Harden DNSSEC data!!! We will see if this fixes my issue..Selecting Harden Glue and Harden DNSSEC data did solve my issue with 2.2. No problems since March 27th
I see.
I use pfSense as a DNS server though, so I can resolve statically mapped DHCP clients on the LAN. If it can't resolve locally, it goes to 8.8.8.8.
Can DNS Forwarder do the same?
I do the same thing. I have the Envisalink alarm board with a DHCP Static address. It would go offline when it couldn't resolve. Now no more issues.
