bind9 RESOLVCONF does not work

[Alex Bligh]

Under 16.04, /etc/default/bind9 contains a RESOLVCONF option which appears not to work with systemd.

Under 14.04, setting RESOLVCONF="yes" in /etc/default/bind9 caused bind9 to be installed as a local resolver. This is done by lines 65-68 of the (16.04) /etc/init.d/bind9.

As far as I can tell, this is broken in 16.04 because systemd is used to start bind9 instead. This appears not to execute those lines (even '/etc/init.d/bind9 start' appears to be subverted judging by 'sh -x' output), and - again as far as I can tell - nothing is calling resolvconf instead. This appears to mean that bind9 no longer can install itself as a resolver, which is a pain.

There may be some systemd specific way of doing this, but I don't know what it is.

[Alex Bligh (ubuntu-alex-org)]

This may explain it:

root@shed2:~# systemctl list-units --all | egrep 'bind9|resolv'
  org.freedesktop.resolve1.busname loaded inactive dead Network Name Resolution Service Bus Name
  systemd-networkd-resolvconf-update.path loaded inactive dead Trigger resolvconf update for networkd DNS
  bind9-resolvconf.service loaded inactive dead local BIND via resolvconf
  bind9.service loaded active running BIND Domain Name Server
  resolvconf.service loaded active exited Nameserver information manager
  systemd-networkd-resolvconf-update.service loaded inactive dead Update resolvconf for networkd DNS
  systemd-resolved.service loaded inactive dead Network Name Resolution
root@shed2:~# systemctl list-unit-files --all | egrep 'bind9|resolv'
org.freedesktop.resolve1.busname static
systemd-networkd-resolvconf-update.path static
bind9-pkcs11.service disabled
bind9-resolvconf.service enabled
bind9.service enabled
dbus-org.freedesktop.resolve1.service disabled
resolvconf.service enabled
systemd-networkd-resolvconf-update.service static
systemd-resolved.service disabled

Note bind9-resolvconf.service is 'loaded inactive dead'

bind9-resolvconf.service was disabled, but even enabling it did not fix it.

Perhaps this is the cause:
  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=744304

as RemainAfterExit=yes is not present in /lib/systemd/system/bind9-resolvconf.service

[Alex Bligh (ubuntu-alex-org)]

I can confirm that this can be fixed by carrying out the instructions here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=744304#32

(i.e. adding a small systemd file)

then:

systemctl enable bind9-resolvconf.service

then restarting bind9.

I don't think it should really be this opaque ...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

The debian bug was closed as part of a mass-close, not due to an updated package.

[Athos Ribeiro (athos-ribeiro)]

There is also https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=832040 which is related to this same issue in Debian.

This has been fixed by https://salsa.debian.org/dns-team/bind9/-/commit/d1c26b707f71366cabd7ba90868ce97e3ebbc8ef which is available since 1:9.10.6+dfsg-5

Since this version have been available from bionic and on, I am closing this bug as fixed.