What's going on with dnsmasq?

[Princess Nell]

While trying to figure out why NetworkManager is so horribly slow, I came across another tool that's behaving in funny ways. Any explanations?

[BoneKracker]

I can't replicate the error. It stops and starts fine for me. I'm using 2.63.

See what happens when you try:

[depontius]

I've been having troubles with dnsmasq on one of my home systems. The problems appear to be intermittent, but they really drive mythbackend nuts. For the time being, I've shut it down on that system. I'm still using it on other systems with no problems. I haven't had time to diagnose further or debug.
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.sigs waste space and bandwidth

[BoneKracker]

I've been using it to manage a two-subnet LAN for four years without any problems. I've never considered using it on a single end-user machine.
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-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[Princess Nell]

I've used it for years without problems, this is recent.

Once I've kill -KILL'd dnsmasq, I can start, stop and restart it with no problems. But the behaviour I described is somehow related to the interaction with (the train wreck that is) NetworkManager. E.g. when I open, use and close a vpn connection through NM, it becomes un-stoppable after.

[depontius]

My main use has been to redirect DNS requests when my VPN to my employer is active. Regular DNS is a rather either/or kind of thing, either I can resolve my LAN or my work network. With dnsmasq I can get both.
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.sigs waste space and bandwidth

[truc]

Did you check your configuration with:

[Princess Nell]

It passes the syntax check.

Running it in debug mode, vpn fails, no matter whether launched through NM or vpnc directly, and there is no output after the attempt to launch vpn. /var/log/messages says:

[truc]

So dnsmasq started correctly right? if the problem is not solved, it's probably wise to start all over again and explain what your problem really is, cause, you've just started dnsmasq in debug mode and the only output you showed in your post was something unrelated to dnsmasq. We can't really help you here!
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The End of the Internet!

[Princess Nell]

Running dnsmasq in debug mode gives me no additional information. When I run dnsmasq in debug mode and attempt to use vpn, vpn doesn't work, and all I get is the log I posted.

[mirekm]

If you use NetworkManager, why start dnsmasq via rc script?
Just remove the dnsmasq from your runlevels, and edit file
/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Put in it following contents:

[main]
dns=dnsmasq


And then after restat, NetworkManager will start/stop dnsmasq by itself on activation/deactivation of connection.

[BoneKracker]

A better question might be "why use NetworkManager, at all?"
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Oldthinkers unbellyfeel INGSOC.
-- Headline of a document on Winston Smith's terminal in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, seen briefly in the background in one scene of the movie rendition of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

[Princess Nell]

That's a good point.

I switched to it a few years back for the convenience of having easy access to all networking functions on the desktop. Unfortunately, in the past year or so, it seems design decisions have been made in the software that, at least for me, had detrimental impact on my system. If there was a feature-compatible replacement, I'd certainly give it a try.

[Hypnos]

I have been using wicd quite effectively since switching from GNOME to XFCE a few years back. It handles Ethernet and WiFi, which is all I need.
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