)(*&)(*&)(*&)(*& named

[Paul Schmehl]

It's time to take on the uneviable task of trying to get named to work.

I'm running FreeBSD 5.4 SECURITY.  I've installed the bind9 port.

When I try to start named using the rc.d script (/etc/rc.d/named start), I 
get this:

Feb  1 05:30:00 stovebolt named[13084]: stopping command channel on 
127.0.0.1#953
Feb  1 05:30:00 stovebolt named[13084]: exiting
Feb  1 05:30:01 stovebolt named[4841]: starting BIND 9.3.2
Feb  1 05:30:02 stovebolt named[4841]: command channel listening on 
127.0.0.1#953
Feb  1 05:30:02 stovebolt named[4841]: 127.0.0:1: no TTL specified; using 
SOA MINTTL instead
Feb  1 05:30:02 stovebolt named[4841]: running
Feb  1 16:28:43 stovebolt named[26670]: starting BIND 9.3.2 -u bind -t 
/var/named
Feb  1 16:28:43 stovebolt named[26670]: /usr/local/etc/named.conf:57: 
couldn't find key 'rndc-key' for use with command channel 127.0.0.1#953
Feb  1 16:28:43 stovebolt named[26670]: command channel listening on 
127.0.0.1#953
Feb  1 16:28:43 stovebolt named[26670]: couldn't open pid file 'named.pid': 
File exists
Feb  1 16:28:43 stovebolt named[26670]: exiting (due to early fatal error)

(So naturally bind doesn't start up automagically on reboot.  And yes, I 
have named_enable=yes in rc.conf:
named_enable="YES"
named_config="/usr/local/etc/named.conf"
named_program="/usr/local/sbin/named"
)

When I try to start named using rndc, I get this:

rndc start
rndc: connect failed: connection refused

Yet, when I start named from the cli, with user root, it works fine:

named -c /usr/local/etc/named.conf -u root

Feb  1 16:31:12 stovebolt named[26784]: starting BIND 9.3.1 -c 
/usr/local/etc/named.conf -u root
Feb  1 16:31:12 stovebolt named[26784]: command channel listening on 
127.0.0.1#953
Feb  1 16:31:12 stovebolt named[26784]: 127.0.0:1: no TTL specified; using 
SOA MINTTL instead
Feb  1 16:31:12 stovebolt named[26784]: running

And it's listening on the command channel, localhost:953 (and port 53 of 
course).

Once named is running, I can use rndc to generate stats, query logs, 
reconfig, flush, halt, stop, etc.  But I *cannot* run rndc start.  I get 
the connection refused error.

????

I'm about ready to write my own startup script, but if anyone experienced 
with this has any suggestions, I'm all ears.  (Yes, I've run rndc-confgen 
and put the info in the rndc.conf file and in the named.conf file.)

I haven't done a ton of googling, so if you don't know the answer of the 
top of your head, don't bother doing my research for me.  I'm just 
wondering if someone will recognize my braindeadness immediately and put me 
out of my misery.

Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/