BIND Package (or similar functioning authoritative DNS server)

voleatech

Upgraded from 2.2.6 to 2.3.2 and the named service won't start. It gives no error and produces no system logs. No other service is using port 53 and the bind configs were all working under the previous version.

Ideas on where to start troubleshooting?

Hi,

that is odd.
You can start by looking in /var/log/system.log for error messages or /var/log/resolver.log .
Can you see any error when you start the daemon?

Best
Sven

Voleatech
pfSense Select Partner

CaptainElmo

Hello Sven. Thank you for doing this - I'm super excited to get this working.

When I click the start arrow on the named service from the dashboard page it spins for about 10 seconds like it is starting up but then stops spinning without starting. There are no error messages. The resolver.log only contains entries from filterdns about some failures in resolving aliases saved under Firewall->Aliases. The system.log has nothing pertaining to the BIND package or the named service.

I'm at a complete loss as to how to troubleshoot this. Of course the first thing I tried was to uninstall the BIND package and re-install but that didn't fix it. Then I tried removing all of the zones in case there was a damaged zone causing trouble, but that didn't fix it either.

sgoldtho

Currently running pfSense:
2.3.2-RELEASE (i386)
built on Tue Jul 19 13:09:39 CDT 2016
FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE-p5

With BIND:
9.10_9 GUI
9.10.4P2 bind package

The named service doesn't start and there are no entries in either the system or resolver logs.

Can bind be started from the command prompt, it may give an indication as to what is "not" happening?

Thanks,
Steve

wxop

Hi there

I've got the exact same problem as @sgoldtho and @CaptainElmo either with a fresh 2.3.1-RELEASE (nanoBSD) or when upgraded to 2.3.2.

Symptom :
Bind cannot be launched from the GUI, while it can be started from the command line using:


/usr/local/etc/rc.d/named onestart

or


/usr/local/sbin/named  -c /etc/namedb/named.conf -u bind -t /cf/named/

BTW When Bind is launched (from CLI first) it can be stopped from the GUI.
And there is nothing showing in the log file….

After fighting a few hours I finally found the fix 8) :

In the rcfile : /usr/local/etc/rc.d/named.sh

change this line:


		if [ -z "`/bin/ps auxw | /usr/bin/grep "[n]amed" | /usr/bin/awk '{print $2}'`" ]; then

to


		if [ -z "`/bin/ps auxw | /usr/bin/grep "[n]amed " | /usr/bin/awk '{print $2}'`" ]; then

–-->Notice the vicious SPACE after [n]amed !

I hope that the maintainer would check this easy fix and include it in the Bind pkg so that next pkg upgrade should work flawlessly.

HTH

voleatech

Hi,

sorry for the restart bug.
That line of code changed because it was not working on ipv4 and ipv6 enabled bind systems.
@wxop thank you for finding the fix.
A new version was just submitted.

Best
Sven

Voleatech
pfSense Select Partner

helge000

@wxop cheers!

Was fighting over the same issue. I can reconfirm the extra space does the trick.

wxop

@voleatech
Thank for your amazing fast reaction, I just saw your PR at:
https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-ports/pull/193/files
while I was myself just figuring on which GH branch I should post the fix to ;-)

You definitely rock !!!!!!

BTW, now that i found the bug (comparing this file with the squid.sh rcfile), I can not understand why this extra space character is needed even after re-reading the grep manual. As a reward for me having spent hours, to find/fix this bug, would someone be kind enough to explain me WHY the hell this fu***g space is mandatory in the grep pattern ?
best regards

voleatech

@wxop
Thanks :)

the PR just got merged.

I honestly don't know at this point why it didn't work.
When I run it on the shell in pfSense both versions work on my box and output the PID.

Best
Sven

Voleatech
pfSense Select Partner

wxop

@voleatech:

the PR just got merged.

Whaou !!! The Pf team is just as amazing as you… or I guess this is just a merge bot ! ;D

I honestly don't know at this point why it didn't work. When I run it on the shell in pfSense both versions work on my box and output the PID.

That's why it did take me hours to figure out why the "if/ps/grep/awk" statement was not working as expected… This is really weird!

Any grep guru out there, to show us the light?

all the best

CaptainElmo

New version worked here as well! Thank you!!!

CaptainElmo

Now I can't get it to accept lookup requests on the WAN interface. Port scan shows port 53 is open as expected from internal interfaces, but port 53 is NOT open on the WAN interface.

Has this changed from previous versions or is my configuration messed up somewhere? It used to work on 2.2.6 with my existing configuration.

voleatech

@CaptainElmo

Bind didn't change except for the GUI between 2.2 and 2.3.
Can you check if bind is actually running on the WAN IP with netstat -ln?

Best
Sven

Voleatech
pfSense Select Partner

CaptainElmo

It turns out the problem was my WAN interface got messed up during the upgrade. I reassigned my WAN connection to a different interface and everything started working again.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have the BIND package available - thank you Sven!!!

tdi

Any chance of update to 9.10.4-P3 re: https://kb.isc.org/article/AA-01419/0 ?

voleatech

Hi,

the source for the bind package comes from the freeBSD port git repository.
You would have to ask in the freeBSD mailing list when this is going to be updated there.

Best
Sven

Voleatech
pfSense Select Partner
www.voleatech.de