Categories
Errors Linux Software

NextDNS and NetworkManager

A while back, I wrote about installing NetworkManager if NextDNS activate fails to work.

Only… I realised that for some reason on Raspberry Pi (4), WiFi stopped working with the following errors:

Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.2204] device (wlan0): state change: config -> failed (reason 'ssid-not-found', sys-iface-state: 'managed')
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7525] device (wlan0): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to 92:F3:ED:C2:8F:9B (scanning)
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <warn>  [1676631302.7559] device (wlan0): Activation: failed for connection 'superuser.one'
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7562] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> disconnected
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7562] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: scanning -> disconnected
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7577] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> interface_disabled
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7578] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> interface_disabled
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7579] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: interface_disabled -> disconnected
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7579] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: interface_disabled -> disconnected
Feb 17 11:55:02 tyr NetworkManager[449]: <info>  [1676631302.7585] device (wlan0): state change: failed -> disconnected (reason 'none', sys-iface-state: 'managed')

The WiFi SSID and password (wpa_supplicant) never changed, so I wasn’t sure what it was. However, as most Pi’s are wired I didn’t pay much attention, until today.

As I had one RPi where nextdns activate worked fine, without NetworkManager installed, and where WiFi worked, I figured there was something evil about NetworkManager (= breaks my WiFi) and NextDNS not actually needing it…

I reverted my changed from my previous post (and removed some extra stuff that was not needed in my case, YMMV):

apt purge -y network-manager dnsmasq-base resolvconf modemmanager ppp ; apt install -y powermgmt-base openresolv ; apt autoremove -y
The powermgmt-base, and modemmanager, ppp parts are likely not needed, but this is just a copy and paste of what I did.

Reboot… And WiFi worked again. However, nextdns activate would still throw an error:

# nextdns activate
Error: NetworkManager resolver management: exit status 5

Going through the source code (yay for open-source) I noticed:

var networkManagerFile = "/etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nextdns.conf"

That file indeed existed on both RPis that had the activate issue.

I ran the following command…

rm /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/nextdns.conf

But that still gave the same error. But as I had purged the entire NetworkManager, I didn’t need its lingering config files… So, why not rid ourselves of everything:

rm -r /etc/NetworkManager

And tada… Now activate works fine:

tyr ~ # nextdns activate
tyr ~ #

Go figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Categories
Errors Linux Software

NetworkManager exit status 1

Recently reinstalled NextDNS on a RPi4 64bit and came across this error:

# nextdns activate
Error: NetworkManager resolver management: exit status 1

It seems like NextDNS was actually running, but just throwing an error when running nextdns activate. Restarting did seem to work without throwing any error.

The logs showed the same error:

Dec 20 14:06:20 tyr nextdns[5753]: Starting NextDNS 1.38.0/linux on :53
Dec 20 14:06:20 tyr nextdns[5753]: Listening on TCP/:53
Dec 20 14:06:20 tyr nextdns[5753]: Starting mDNS discovery
Dec 20 14:06:20 tyr nextdns[5753]: Listening on UDP/:53
Dec 20 14:06:21 tyr nextdns[5753]: Connected 45.90.28.0:443 (con=13ms tls=58ms, TCP, TLS13)
Dec 20 14:06:21 tyr nextdns[5753]: Connected 185.18.148.91:443 (con=12ms tls=28ms, TCP, TLS13)
Dec 20 14:06:21 tyr nextdns[5753]: Switching endpoint: https://dns.nextdns.io#185.18.148.91,2a04:b80:1:30::2
Dec 20 14:06:25 tyr nextdns[5753]: Setting up router
Dec 20 14:06:25 tyr nextdns[5753]: Activating
Dec 20 14:06:25 tyr nextdns[5753]: Activate: NetworkManager resolver management: exit status 1

The solution was (as root):

apt install network-manager resolvconf -y
systemctl enable NetworkManager
systemctl start NetworkManager
nextdns activate

Looks like, instead of resolvconf, openresolv was installed.

First time I heard about openresolv; usually resolvconf is the default. Not entirely sure if this was the culprit (and NetworkManager not being started) but the errors are now gone.

Categories
Networking Software

Sony stops DNS resolvers

The Hamburg Regional Court today ruled that they would not suspend an existing injunction against Quad9 in a case filed by Sony Music Germany. The case centers around Sony Music’s demand that Quad9’s servers located in Germany stop resolving DNS names of third-party sites which are claimed to have URLs that contain copyright infringements.

Source.

Unbelievable.

Also note “claimed to have”. Not proven to have.

Knowing that Sony has not been very good at actually identifying copyrighted content, and they just throw stuff around to see what sticks.

And DMCA requests have done more evil than good…

Also, what will actually happen? Quad9 will move its DNS servers outside of Germany and/or people will use other DNS resolvers. Nothing get fixed, and users are punished with worse latency.

Categories
Misc Networking

0x04

Almost 10 years after I registered 0x04.com, it’s time to part ways.

0x04.com whois
old whois info — created 29 Aug 2010.

Yesterday I finalised the sale of 0x04.com.

My company in Singapore was called 0x04 pte. ltd. and to avoid any confusion I’ve renamed to su1 pte. ltd. su1 standing for Superuser.one. 🤷‍♂️

Categories
Linux Networking Software

NextDNS, EdgeOS and device names

Noticed that NextDNS was reporting old hostnames in the logs. For example old device names (devices that changed hostnames), devices that were definitely no longer on the network, or IPs that were matched to the wrong hostnames.

The culprit is how EdgeOS deals with its hosts file. Basically it just keeps all the old hosts added and just adds a new line at the end of the file.

NextDNS searches for the first valid entry in that file, which is always going to be an older record.

So the simplest solution I found was the turn off hostfile-update every so often. This clears the hosts file.

So ssh into the device, run configure, and then run these commands:

set service dhcp-server hostfile-update disable
commit
set service dhcp-server hostfile-update enable
commit
save