#171 DNS Plug-in: chrooted DNS Support

[xxx :)]

I followed this link to setup the chrooted DNS - http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect-server-ubuntu8.04-lts-p4. It worked fine after the setup. Then, after installing OpenQRM 4.3 on Ubuntu 8.04-Server, the chrooted DNS server failed to start:

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root@ubuntu804:~# /etc/init.d/bind9 start
* Starting domain name service... bind [fail]
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So, I started by tracing the logs in /var/log/syslog, and I found this is due to loading the configuration file, /etc/bind/named.conf.local,

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Jan 10 14:01:29 ubuntu804 named[11166]: loading configuration from '/etc/bind/named.conf'
Jan 10 14:01:29 ubuntu804 named[11166]: /etc/bind/named.conf:40: open: /etc/bind/named.conf.local: file not found
Jan 10 14:01:29 ubuntu804 named[11166]: loading configuration: file not found
Jan 10 14:01:29 ubuntu804 named[11166]: exiting (due to fatal error)
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The file is actually symlinked to /usr/lib/openqrm/plugins/dns/etc/bind/named.conf.local

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root@ubuntu804:~# ls -l /etc/bind/named.conf.local
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root bind 54 2009-01-10 14:00 /etc/bind/named.conf.local -> /usr/lib/openqrm/plugins/dns/etc/bind/named.conf.local
------------------------------

And the file can be viewed:

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root@ubuntu804:~# cat /etc/bind/named.conf.local

zone "oqnet.org" IN {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/oqnet.org.in.db";
};

zone "0.168.192.in-addr.arpa" {
type master;
file "/etc/bind/zones/oqnet.org.rev.db";
};
------------------------------

The reason that bind9 failed to start is because that the bind is chrooted, and it only has access to the its "root", /var/lib/named. So, the symlinked /usr/lib/openqrm/plugins/dns/etc/bind/named.conf.local file can't be seen by bind9.

A quick workaround:

First, copy the openqrm specific named.conf.local file the chrooted jail:

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cp /usr/lib/openqrm/plugins/dns/etc/bind/named.conf.local /var/lib/named/etc/bind/named.conf.local.openqrm
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Then, edit /var/lib/named/etc/bind/named.conf to change the last line to,

--------------------------------
// include "/etc/bind/named.conf.local";
include "/etc/bind/named.conf.local.openqrm";
--------------------------------

Bind9 now starts fine:

--------------------------------
root@ubuntu804:/var/lib/named/etc/bind# /etc/init.d/bind9 start
* Starting domain name service... bind [ OK ]
--------------------------------

The workaround needs to be performed every time the openqrm server is initialized , as I believe the openqrm init process will edit the /etc/bind/named.conf file to include the symlinked named.conf.local file.

An integrated solution would be more appropriate to resolve this issue.