[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:-

***@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!
***@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.
***@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
***@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]

Post by 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.

I think it maybe was. I've upgraded from jessie to stretch and that
has fixed the problem. Searching seemed to suggest that there was
some sort of systemd change that broke dnsmasq which has been fixed
now - so upgrading sorted it.

If anyone is interested (and/or hits the same problem) it's soemthing
to do with systemd and dns-root-data and how systemd starts dnsmasq.