FW: MaraDNS now runs automatically on reboot but always times out...

Tue Aug 5 15:46:34 EDT 2008

For the record, Sam, it was the following remark from you that turned on the
light at the end of the tunnel for me...

"Since the error looks like one where you don't have the IP Mara is asking
for.  What is the value of bind_address or ipv4_bind_addresses in your
mararc file?"

It hadn't dawned on me until you phrased it that way that maradns actually
had TWO port 53's to deal with for the authoritative side of the server. And
that it was possible that one of them was active while the other was dead.
That of course, also explained why one of my test domains worked after the
reboot but the other did not. For testing purposes, I had deliberately
pointed each domain name to a different primary DNS server (i.e. toward a
different IP address) on my server. I guess that explains why after the
server reboot one test domain name continued to work but the other didn't.
The registrar's primary name server record for the not-working test domain
was pointing to an IP address that was no longer alive!

One thing I don't understand... once the primary DNS failed due to the IP
address having "gone dead", why didn't mara automatically reroute the
request to the secondary DNS address and forward the request to Apache that
way?

Thanks again!

Best, 
Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Platt - Platt Consultants [mailto:GregPlatt at ix.netcom.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:26 PM
To: 'Sam Trenholme'; 'list at maradns.org'
Subject: RE: FW: MaraDNS now runs automatically on reboot but always times
out...
Importance: High

Sorry about the private reply. I know how mailman works, I manage a set of
lists myself. But I hit reply rather than reply-all without thinking and
overlooked the implications of doing so.

Believe it or not, a single request from you helped me find and fix the
problem I was having in minutes. I went to lots of trouble last week to
determine exactly out how to get the second IP address activated on my
server so that I had two IP addresses for maradns to bind to and not just
one. In the end, to achieve that, I used:

ifconfig eth0 add 208.18.190.69 netmask 255.255.254.0

to activate it. What didn't dawn on me at the time was that ifconfig would
completely forget about that IP address when I rebooted the system. That's
exactly what happened when I rebooted yesterday after a week had gone by.

Since that port was one of the two being used by maradns, it worked
flawlessly until I rebooted. But after the reboot, only 1 of the IP
addresses was active. So, when I went looking for what you called ipconfig I
soon realized you must mean ifconfig. And when I saw that report and
realized it ONLY included et0 and not eth0:0, I instantly knew I'd found the
cause of my problem. Sure enough when I reactivated eth0:0, maradns started
working again without problems.

I guess this means I need to put that ifconfig command into my startup
scripts, huh?

Thanks a lot, Sam... You're a Genius, sir! :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Trenholme [mailto:strenholme.usenet at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 11:32 AM
To: gregplatt at ix.netcom.com; list at maradns.org
Subject: Re: FW: MaraDNS now runs automatically on reboot but always times
out...

Greg,

Just a reminder to send all messages to the list (I know, in Gmail,
it's easy to accidentally send the mail to just me).  As per my
disclaimer, I am CCing this reply to the list.

> Log: Root directory changed
> Fatal error: Problem binding to port 53.
>
> System said: Cannot assign requested address

OK, to see if something is on port 53, do this as root:

netstat -nap | grep 53

These options are Linux-specific, and tell you which process is on a given
port.

To see what services^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H daemons are started by your
system, look in /etc/init.d, /etc/rc3.d (symlinks to all services
started at runlevel 3) and /etc/rc5.d (runlevel 5).  As an aside, does
anyone here know the default runlevel for init on Debian systems?

Also, make sure you have the IP Mara is asking for:

ipconfig

Since the error looks like one where you don't have the IP Mara is
asking for.  What is the value of bind_address or ipv4_bind_addresses
in your mararc file?

MaraDNS *should* use /etc/mararc for the default configuration file;
if not look at the appropriate /etc/init.d file (probably
/etc/init.d/maradns) to see how MaraDNS is started up.

> Thanks for the feedback and the willingness to help, Sam. I know you're
very
> busy. Obviously, any further thoughts or suggestions you have would be
MUCH
> appreciated. I'm particularly curious now about how to create a mara error
> log. If I can prove the same problem happens during boot-time startup
(i.e.
> mara is unable to bind port 53) then I'll know where to look next.

MaraDNS, if started with duende, will log all messages with syslog().
The Duende man page has all of the ugly details:

man duende

MaraDNS uses standard output for all logs; duende converts this in to
system logs (In /var/log as I recall on Debian systems).

I'm a RedHat/CentOS guy, not a Debian guy, so my knowledge doesn't apply
100%.

- Sam

Note: If you send me a MaraDNS-related support question, I reserve the
right to post your support email to the Mara-DNS mailing list so that
the community at large can examine your issue. MaraDNS security
vulnerability reports, however, will be kept confidential.