[Dnsmasq-discuss] How to get back to default Network Manager dnsmasq (local DNS cache only)?

[Dan Williams]

On Wed, 2013-01-09 at 14:27 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 09:17:21AM -0600, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Sat, 2013-01-05 at 14:16 +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> > > A while ago I turned off the Network Manager loading of dnsmasq on my
> > > desktop machine and installed a 'real' dnsmasq so that my desktop
> > > machine could be the DNS server for the local LAN.
> > > 
> > > To do this I commented out the dns=dnsmasq line in
> > > /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf,
> > > installed dnsmasq (apt-get install dnsmasq) and configured
> > > /etc/dnsmasq.conf. This all worked OK but I've now decided that I want
> > > to revert to the default setup and I can't work out how to do it.
> > > 
> > > I have uncommented the dns=dnsmasq and I have uninstalled dnsmasq but
> > > there's no dnsmasq running.  The dnsmasq-base package *is* still
> > > installed but there's no dnsmasq running after rebooting.
> > 
> > Does the 'dnsmasq' package only include the generic config file
> > (eg /etc/dnsmasq.conf)?
> > 
> I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.  The dnsmasq-base package
> just has the executable and not much else I think, it doesn't include
> /etc/dnsmasq.conf.  Network Manager runs dnsmasq with its own
> configuration file (somewher down /var I think).
> 
> 
> > Also, NM needs a restart to see the dns=dnsmasq change, but I'll assume
> > you've done that already.  We can get more debuginfo from NetworkManager
> > by running this command:
> > 
> > sudo dbus-send --system --print-reply
> > --dest=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager
> > org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.SetLogging string:"debug" string:""
> > 
> OK, I have done this command.
> 
> 
> > which tells NM to start logging at the debug level.  Then reconnect the
> > network or do something that would cause DNS to be updated, and look
> 
> Not so easy that is it?  I.e. what's going to update DNS except for my
> machine rebooting and asking for things via DHCP etc.?

NetworkManager will.  When the network is reconnected (either by picking
it from the menu or by 'nmcli nm enable false; nmcli nm enable true')
DHCP will be run again, which results in DNS information, which NM will
forward to dnsmasq.  So we'll see what happens.

> > at /var/log/messages, /var/log/NetworkManager.log,
> > or /var/log/daemon.log (or wherever syslog's 'daemon' facility gets
> > directed).
> > 
> > To turn off debug logging, use "info" instead of "debug" in the above
> > dbus-send command.
> > 
> Before doing the above all I saw (relating to dnsmasq) in
> /var/log/syslog was a message saying the plugin had been loaded.
> There's *nothing* after that - but on the working system there's loads
> of stuff about dnsmasq starting etc.
> 
> Is it possible/easy to turn on NetworkManager logging at boot time, it
> might be easier then to have logging on when dnsmasq is started.

You can send that command to NM whenever you like, or you can launch NM
with the --log-level=debug parameter to get the same result.

Dan