[Dnsmasq-discuss] Dnsmasq on OSX Server 10.8 / Mountain Lion

[Tom Silvennoinen]

I've installed Dnsmasq without any problem on a Linux Mint machine, 
running as a quasi-dns-server for my home office network with a DSL 
internet connection. Dns only, no dhcp.

We´re mostly a Mac shop, and have discovered the hard way that 10.8 
server running Open Directory is even more dependent on reverse dns 
lookups than the previous versions, hence this new dns server. (Dnsmasq 
is much more apt for this setup than running the full dns server of osx).

Obviously, I need some local fallback dns-servers apart from the Linux 
box, and running Dnsmasq on the osx servers themselves would be the 
ideal solution.

But, since we´re talking Apple, of course no server hacks "just works".

Dnsmasq is now actually running on the server, but however I try, I 
can´t make it listen to any external port. Running "lsof -Pni" shows 
Dnsmasq listening to 127.0.0.1:53, but when I set listen-address in 
Dnsmasq to the machine's IP, all I get is "can't assagin requested 
address" and continuous respawns in the server logs after restarting the 
server.

Even more annoying, I in fact had Dnsmasq running correctly on this 
server for a while, serving lookups to other machines. But after a 
reboot I got back to the current state. When I started Server.app on the 
machine, it told me the name of the server had changed (it hadn´t), 
started a guide to fix it, and started the osx´s own dns service without 
me asking for it. After stopping it I got stuck where I am now.

I´ve tried the same setup on a non-server 10.6-box, without these 
problems (my current secondary dns, running o.k.). This makes me suspect 
something on the osx server blocking anything listening to port 53.

Does anybody have any suggestion on how to get around this, apart from a 
virtual bsd/linux server running Dnsmasq on the osx server? That would 
do the trick without extra hardware, but seems a bit of overkill just 
for my wee LAN.

Thanks,
Tom