I get this error on booting.
Traced it to the rc.bind script. if I read it right, named is not running.

So I did this:

lsmod is used in the above to show that the capability module is already running, so capability is not the problem.

According to the man page, -d is a debug level setting for named. Presumably using this would get some helpful output from named but that does not happen. Use of ps and grep confirms that "named" fails right away (exits silently right away).

So: a conclusion: "named" is failing and capability is not failing.

So now what do I do?

p.s. - I am on line right now with this machine. Domains are being resolved because I can connect to sites with my browser and can get the mail. Does the mean that I actually do not need named? Please let me know if so, then I can just comment out the error message echo lines in rc.init and be done with it.

p.p.s. My news software just failed to get ... perhaps "named" is needed just for news? I am more confused the more I think about this.

"Named" is a nameserver daemon (ISC BIND). You need it only if you need to serve DNS records. If that sounds like the average Philip Glass (or Frank Zappa or Vollenweider or Chopin, whichever else you can't stand) piece of music to you, or if you know you just want to cache DNS requests you make to your ISP's or other nameservers, then you don't need named but the named libraries and the "caching-nameserver" (sounds like) package (or if you don't want the ISC/named stuff, then maybe Pdnsd).

Ahhhh, I see. Thank you. This becomes a little less confusing. Thank you. Some time ago I had set up something in my linux to cache IP addrsses so that firefox would stop being so stupid.

So now the question is, how to get named to generate some output so I can in turn determien what the actual problem is. The man page for named indicates that the use of the -d option should generater more verbose output from named. As seen in the quote in my original posting, this is not the case: no output from named is ever generated.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Or is this new changed question too off topic from the original post? If so, let me know and I'll start another thread. Thanks.

Update

I tried random stupid things. Making up command line options, going through the alphabet for the command line switches. Eventually got named to give me some error output, though I am unsure of its helpfulness:
And to verify thw existance and protection of the mentioned directory and the mentioned file:
So. Root runs a program (named, in this case). The program access a world-readable directory and claims failure. The program also accesses a world-readable file and claims failure.

Conclusion One: named (only on my machine, and only recently) has suddenly changed itself to become unable to open a file or read a directory.

Conclusion Two: the error message is wrong. It indicates one error that is actually caused by a completely different error.

Conclusion three: I been hax0red.

I'd guess conclusion 2, but I defer to the collective wisdom of these forums. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

With all due respect I think the question should be "do I need to run named when I do not serve DNS records to world?".

So which part of the above helps me get named running?

If you need to find out what happened you better trace things back to the last time (aprox) 'named' worked OK and check your history of commands what changed then (update, reconfig, manual mucking around). Most likely update stuff.

The error is no indication your machine was cracked (at least a certain type of cracker usually likes to keep things quiet) and the "/etc/named.conf:2: change directory to '/var/named' failed: permission denied" points to directory permission problems and "loading configuration: permission denied" probably to permission problems wrt the daemon (user) not being able to read the config file because it's owned by another user. Get rid of those and the "capability" error will disappear too.

Other than that in two of your posts you have asked if you actually needed to run 'named'. I told you you don't need to: you want a caching nameserver. Running 'named' or any other stuff you don't need isn't something I would recommend.