[SOLVED] named on debian 11, where are the logs?

Red Squirrel · 11-26-2021, 01:38 PM

Edit: Found it. It's /var/log/syslog. This also helped me with the issue I was having as it turned out to be permissions:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1156...ng-not-working

I'm having trouble stating named, but systemd is pretty much useless as far as output goes. I'm trying to figure out where I'm suppose to look to see why things are failing.

I added the following to the named.conf.options file:

Code:

logging {
  channel bind_log {
    file "/var/log/bind/bind.log" versions 3 size 5m;
    severity info;
    print-category yes;
    print-severity yes;
    print-time yes;
  };
  category default { bind_log; };
  category update { bind_log; };
  category update-security { bind_log; };
  category security { bind_log; };
  category queries { bind_log; };
  category lame-servers { null; };
};

Also created the directory /var/log/bind.

No go, it's not generating a log. It won't start, and I don't know why because there is no output going anywhere. Any way to figure out why it's failing to start? Could be something wrong with config, but there's no way to know. named-checkconf also outputs nothing.

boughtonp · 11-27-2021, 07:47 AM

When you edit a post to say you've solved it, it continues to occupy space in the Zero Reply Threads list and remains on forced-unread status in New/Latest Posts lists.

If you use a follow up post instead, it doesn't do these things, and it also causes anyone who might have subscribed to the thread to get notified.

Red Squirrel · 12-03-2021, 02:04 PM

Ok my bad yeah should have done that.

rokytnji · 12-03-2021, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Any way to figure out why it's failing to start?

I usually use dmesg

Code:

dmesg | grep < my question goes here. Usually application name or hardware name >

Old dmesg logs can read by cat in terminal also.

Code:

cat /var/log/dmesg/dmesg.4

You can use the locate command to find exact location of logs also.

Code:

locate dmesg

Good Luck. I gave up on systemd stuff when I could not edit some systemd call files that were locked down.

Red Squirrel · 12-03-2021, 09:32 PM

I do find systemd annoying myself... any decent mainstream distros that don't use it?

boughtonp · 12-04-2021, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Squirrel

I do find systemd annoying myself... any decent mainstream distros that don't use it?

Depends how you define "decent" and "mainstream"...

See https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd

Top three listed are currently MX Linux, antiX, Slackware.

The first two of those are Debian-based, as is Devuan, which is specifically "Debian without systemd".

Red Squirrel · 12-05-2021, 01:10 AM

Yeah was looking at Devuan, and Slackware. I may play with those. Slackware is fairly mainstream, in that it's a "main" distro and not a fork, while Devuan is a fork, so it's something to consider. Not that there's anything wrong with a fork, but I imagine it does mean there is a bit of a delay for updates. Though I don't think Slackware is considered bleeding edge either by nature. Either way going to have to start experimenting I guess. I'm still on CentOS 6.6 on my servers so need to decide on an upgrade path. The Debian 11 server I was working on got hacked while I was setting it up, no idea how they got in as I had nothing really running on it yet, just apache going to a temporary landing page, OpenSSH and named. They used a similar attack as they used on my previous box which was also CentOS 6.6. Some kind of injection into apache that allows root escalation.

So yeah at this point I gave up hosting my own server after like 15 years of self hosting. Moved the important stuff to a shared host and shut down the other sites/services.

Whatever distro I go to I want to build it into an ultra secure hosting environment that also automates lot of the tedious stuff. (basically like cpanel) Was reading that systemd adds more attack layers too, just due to it's huge complexity. Essentially I want to roll my own distro based on a main one. A custom installer, essentially. Need to read up more on that and experiment.