[Dnsmasq-discuss] 'junk found in command line' - what does this mean? (systemd problem I suspect)

[Chris Green]

I have dnsmasq running on a Raspberry Pi providing DHCP and DNS on my
home network.

It looks as if we had a power failure overnight and, as a result (I
think) dnsmasq won't restart on the Raspberry Pi when I reboot it. If
I run dnsmasq manually from the command line it works OK, thus I do
have DHCP/DNS back now but I'd like it to start at boot time.

I did recently update to a newer Raspbian so the power failure *might*
be a red herring.


The diagnostics from systemd when you try and restart dnsmasq are as
follows:-

    root at raspberrypi:~# /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart
    [....] Restarting dnsmasq (via systemctl): dnsmasq.serviceJob for dnsmasq.service failed. See 'systemctl status dnsmasq.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details.
     failed!
    root at raspberrypi:~# systemctl status dnsmasq.service
    ● dnsmasq.service - dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server
       Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dnsmasq.service; enabled)
      Drop-In: /run/systemd/generator/dnsmasq.service.d
               └─50-dnsmasq-$named.conf, 50-insserv.conf-$named.conf
       Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2018-07-18 10:34:18 BST; 14s ago
      Process: 963 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/dnsmasq systemd-exec (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
      Process: 960 ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/dnsmasq --test (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

    Jul 18 10:34:17 raspberrypi dnsmasq[960]: dnsmasq: syntax check OK.
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi dnsmasq[963]: dnsmasq: junk found in command line
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: dnsmasq.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server.
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Unit dnsmasq.service entered failed state.
    root at raspberrypi:~# ps -ef | grep dns
    nobody     911     1  0 10:31 ?        00:00:00 dnsmasq
    root       991   942  0 10:34 pts/0    00:00:00 grep dns
    root at raspberrypi:~# journalctl -xn
    -- Logs begin at Wed 2018-07-18 10:17:03 BST, end at Wed 2018-07-18 10:34:43 BST. --
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi dnsmasq[963]: dnsmasq: junk found in command line
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi dnsmasq[963]: junk found in command line
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi dnsmasq[963]: FAILED to start up
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: dnsmasq.service: control process exited, code=exited status=1
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start dnsmasq - A lightweight DHCP and caching DNS server.
    -- Subject: Unit dnsmasq.service has failed
    -- Defined-By: systemd
    -- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
    -- 
    -- Unit dnsmasq.service has failed.
    -- 
    -- The result is failed.
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Host and Network Name Lookups.
    -- Subject: Unit nss-lookup.target has failed
    -- Defined-By: systemd
    -- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
    -- 
    -- Unit nss-lookup.target has failed.
    -- 
    -- The result is dependency.
    Jul 18 10:34:18 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Unit dnsmasq.service entered failed state.
    Jul 18 10:34:43 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Starting Cleanup of Temporary Directories...
    -- Subject: Unit systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service has begun with start-up
    -- Defined-By: systemd
    -- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
    -- 
    -- Unit systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service has begun starting up.
    Jul 18 10:34:43 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started Cleanup of Temporary Directories.
    -- Subject: Unit systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service has finished start-up
    -- Defined-By: systemd
    -- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
    -- 
    -- Unit systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service has finished starting up.
    -- 
    -- The start-up result is done.

So what's wrong and how do I fix it?

-- 
Chris Green