Could not drop root uid

[Sam Trenholme]

> maradns.etc_maradns_mararc: Fatal error: Could not drop root uid
> maradns.etc_maradns_mararc: System said: Resource temporarily unavailable

You know, as I said before, I hate passing the buck.  However, this
definitely looks like a kernel issue.  Let me explain MaraDNS 1.0’s
design in more detail:

MaraDNS 1.0 uses a threaded model.  Every time there is a recursive
request for a DNS entry not in MaraDNS’ cache, MaraDNS spawns a thread
to process the request.  This works fairly well on Microsoft Windows
and other platforms with lightweight threads; it doesn’t work so well
on *NIX variants, especially with older computers.

When I decided to use a threaded model for MaraDNS, I did so for the
very practical reason that it’s a lot easier to make a recursive DNS
server with threads than with a select()/state machine model.  The
design was to be a “rough draft”; I always intended to rewrite the
recursive core.

Well, the recursive core was finished by 2001; it was debugged and
released in June of 2002.  Then, life happened.  I went back to
college, got a degree, went to Mexico, starting looking for work down
there and dating girls...etc.  Work didn’t begin on the second
generation recursive resolver of MaraDNS until 2007.

By the end of 2007, I had finished the code for a non-recursive DNS
cache.  In 2008, I went back to dating girls and found the girl who is
today my wife.  In 2009, I had some time to work on the rewrite of the
recursive code and made a lot of progress that year (DNS-over-TCP, DNS
compression, DNS RR processing, etc.).  I got burnt out around
September of 2009 and stopped work on the next-generation recursive
code until early 2010.

Right now, the next-generation thread-free recursive code is about 90%
complete.  I hope to have something complete and ready for general
testing by late June, but since I am not paying the bills with this
project, no guarantees.

Once I have something ready for testing, I will let people on the list
know.  In the meantime, people can get the latest updates on the
second-generation recursive code here:

http://www.maradns.org/deadwood/CHANGELOG

http://maradns.blogspot.com/search/label/Deadwood

- Sam

Note: I do not answer MaraDNS (including Deadwood) support requests
sent by private email without being compensated for my time. A MaraDNS
support request is any and all discussion you may wish to have about
MaraDNS in private email; if you want to email me to talk about
MaraDNS then, yes, that is a support request. I will discuss rates if
you want this kind of support. Thank you for your understanding.

MaraDNS security vulnerability reports, however, will be dealt with
without charge and kept confidential. If you don't know what Bugtraq
is, then, no, your email is not a security report. It is not a
security report unless you've done due diligence to determine how the
security bug you think you found can reasonably be exploited.