[Dnsmasq-discuss] dnsmasq stops working after changing from ppp to dhcp

[Chris Purves]

On Tue, December 20, 2005 8:06 pm, Dave Page said:
> On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 03:12:47PM +0800, Chris Purves wrote:
>
>> I would like to add that /var/run/dnsmasq/resolv.conf does correctly
>> show the dns servers:
>
>> nameserver 219.233.241.166
>> nameserver 211.167.97.67
>> nameserver 211.167.97.68
>
>> However, the first nameserver does not work.  If I try to ping it from
>> the computer connected directly to the internet I get no response.
>
> It seems that there's a problem with your ISP, but this shouldn't be too
> much of a problem; I'd *expect* dnsmasq to figure out that the first
> server is broken and use the others, but don't hold me to that.
>
Yes, this appeared to be the problem.  When dnsmasq wasn't working I would
get the following in syslog:

Dec 22 20:00:11 aurora dnsmasq[1839]: nameserver 211.167.97.68 refused to
do a recursive query

>From the FAQ page http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/FAQ I found:

Q: Dnsmasq sometimes logs "nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx refused
   to do a recursive query" and DNS stops working. What's going on?

A: Probably the nameserver is an authoritative nameserver for a
   particular domain, but is not configured to answer general DNS
   queries for an arbitrary domain. It is not suitable for use by
   dnsmasq as an upstream server and should be removed from the
   configuration. Note that if you have more than one upstream
   nameserver configured dnsmasq will load-balance across them and
   it may be some time before dnsmasq gets around to using a
   particular nameserver. This means that a particular configuration
   may work for sometime with a broken upstream nameserver
   configuration.

By removing the server that does not allow recursive queries from
/var/run/dnsmasq/resolv.conf, the problem is fixed.  So, I guess I will
have to manage the nameservers myself.  What I don't understand is why
dnsmasq doesn't try the next nameserver instead of stopping.

Thanks for your help.

-- 
Good day, eh.
Chris