[Dnsmasq-discuss] What's this error in syslog mean?

[Chris Green]

I have looked at a new installation of dnsmasq on another Raspberry Pi
and that does exactly the same thing.  A ps shows:-

    dnsmasq    605     1  0 Sep04 ?        00:00:17 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq -x /run/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.pid -u dnsmasq -r /run/dnsmasq/resolv.conf -7 /etc/dnsmasq.d,.dpkg-dist,.dpkg-old,.dpkg-new --local-service --trust-anchor=.,20326,8,2,e06d44b80b8f1d39a95c0b0d7c65d08458e880409bbc683457104237c7f8ec8d

In syslog it seems to produce a "Too few arguments" error every time it's [re]started:-

    root at backup# grep 'Too few' syslog*
    syslog.1:Sep  4 11:55:06 backup dnsmasq[16069]: Too few arguments.
    syslog.1:Sep  4 12:16:19 backup dnsmasq[17888]: Too few arguments.
    syslog.1:Sep  4 12:16:19 backup dnsmasq[17946]: Too few arguments.
    syslog.1:Sep  4 12:29:27 backup dnsmasq[19102]: Too few arguments.
    syslog.1:Sep  4 12:29:27 backup dnsmasq[19160]: Too few arguments.
    syslog.1:Sep  4 17:07:47 backup dnsmasq[606]: Too few arguments.


That last one is the process after the running copy of dnsmasq.

So there would seem to be something broken about the Raspberry Pi default configuration.
This is the version information:-

    chris at backup$ dnsmasq --version
    Dnsmasq version 2.80  Copyright (c) 2000-2018 Simon Kelley
    Compile time options: IPv6 GNU-getopt DBus i18n IDN DHCP DHCPv6 no-Lua TFTP conntrack ipset auth DNSSEC loop-detect inotify dumpfile

    This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
    Dnsmasq is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or 3.


Same error reported on Stack Exchange about a year and a half ago:-

    https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/106249/dnsmasq-error-too-few-arguments

I'm going to try a dnsmasq installation on a non Raspberry Pi system and 
see what happens.

-- 
Chris Green