[Dnsmasq-discuss] dnsmasq frequently dying on me

[Simon Kelley]

Cory Riddell wrote:
> I just set up a new Fedora Core 3 server and setup a fresh build of
> dnsmasq. I built the rpm then installed that rpm on the server.
> Everything seemed to go well...
> 
> It works beautifully for a while (maybe an hour), then eventually
> dies. If I watch my /var/messages log file, I see:
> Jun  7 11:59:38 mars dnsmasq[10062]: nameserver 204.147.80.5 refused
> to do a recursive query
> 
> If I look in my dnsmasq log, I see lines that look like:
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: nameserver 204.147.80.5 refused
> to do a recursive query
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: query[A] www.google.com from 192.168.111.82
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: forwarded www.google.com to 204.147.80.5
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: nameserver 204.147.80.5 refused
> to do a recursive query
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: query[AAAA] www.google.com from
> 192.168.111.82
> Jun  7 11:58:36 mars dnsmasq[10062]: forwarded www.google.com to 204.147.80.5
> Jun  7 11:58:37 mars dnsmasq[10062]: nameserver 204.147.80.5 refused
> to do a recursive query
> Jun  7 11:58:37 mars dnsmasq[10062]: query[AAAA] www.google.com from
> 192.168.111.82
> 
> Once messages like this start appearing, nothing resolves anymore.
> 
> My /etc/resolv.conf looks like:
>   nameserver 206.26.36.34
>   nameserver 198.36.160.1
>   nameserver 204.147.80.5
> 
> Speakeasy is our ISP.
> 
> Any suggestions or ideas?
> 

Remove 204.147.80.5 from /etc/resolv.conf. It's not a recursive server 
and will not answer arbitrary DNS queries by passing them on to other 
servers.

The reason it's taking some time to see the problem is because dnsmasq 
is slowly cycling through the configured servers. Once it starts using 
the broken one then the problems start.

Dnsmasq helpfully logs that the server may be broken, but it still uses 
it as configured, since under certain circumstances forwarding to a 
non-recursive server is a sane thing to do.

HTH

Simon.