Unbound won't start on system boot

Robert Moskowitz rgm at htt-consult.com
Fri Jun 13 00:10:34 UTC 2025



On 6/12/25 7:55 PM, bruce wrote:
> hi Robert
>
> Ignore this msg if it's no help.
>
> The system you're testing on is your own/home. Are you able to test on 
> a full remote  digitalocean, aws, etc.. Does testing on these services 
> give the same issue

I don't have any accounts for such.  I thought about learning AWS, but 
never did...

> just thinking.

You must be on the west coast if you have energy for that still!  :)

>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 12, 2025, 5:08 PM Robert Moskowitz via ubuntu-users 
> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 6/12/25 4:40 PM, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
>     > On Thu, Jun 12, 2025 at 4:01 PM Robert Moskowitz
>     <rgm at htt-consult.com> wrote:
>     >> Still not starting on boot despite working with service settings.
>     >>
>     >> defaults:
>     >>
>     >> cat /usr/lib/systemd/system/unbound.service
>     >> [Unit]
>     >> Description=Unbound DNS server
>     >> Documentation=man:unbound(8)
>     >> After=network.target
>     >> Before=nss-lookup.target
>     >> Wants=nss-lookup.target
>     >>
>     >> [Service]
>     >> Type=notify
>     >> Restart=on-failure
>     >> EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/unbound
>     >> ExecStartPre=-/usr/libexec/unbound-helper chroot_setup
>     >> ExecStartPre=-/usr/libexec/unbound-helper root_trust_anchor_update
>     >> ExecStart=/usr/sbin/unbound -d -p $DAEMON_OPTS
>     >> ExecStopPost=-/usr/libexec/unbound-helper chroot_teardown
>     >> ExecReload=+/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
>     >>
>     >> [Install]
>     >> WantedBy=multi-user.target
>     >>
>     >> ================
>     >>
>     >> so it is already setup for After= but this is not enough.  So via
>     >>
>     >> systemctl edit unbound.service
>     >>
>     >> cat /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d/override.conf
>     >> [Unit]
>     >> StartLimitIntervalSec=30  # Allow restarts within a 30-second
>     interval
>     >> StartLimitBurst=3         # Allow a maximum of 3 restarts
>     within the
>     >> interval
>     >>
>     >> [Service]
>     >> RestartSec=10             # Wait 10 seconds before restarting
>     >>
>     >> ==========================
>     >>
>     >> Yet, it fails on boot and this is what status reports:
>     >>
>     >> × unbound.service - Unbound DNS server
>     >>        Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/unbound.service;
>     enabled;
>     >> preset: enabled)
>     >>       Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d
>     >>                └─override.conf
>     >>        Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2025-06-12
>     15:46:45
>     >> EDT; 42s ago
>     >>          Docs: man:unbound(8)
>     >>       Process: 1055 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/unbound-helper
>     chroot_setup
>     >> (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
>     >>       Process: 1057 ExecStartPre=/usr/libexec/unbound-helper
>     >> root_trust_anchor_update (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
>     >>       Process: 1060 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/unbound -d -p $DAEMON_OPTS
>     >> (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
>     >>       Process: 1063 ExecStopPost=/usr/libexec/unbound-helper
>     >> chroot_teardown (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
>     >>      Main PID: 1060 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
>     >>           CPU: 44ms
>     >>
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Scheduled
>     restart job,
>     >> restart counter is at 5.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Start request
>     repeated
>     >> too quickly.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Failed with
>     result
>     >> 'exit-code'.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: Failed to start unbound.service -
>     >> Unbound DNS server.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Start request
>     repeated
>     >> too quickly.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Failed with
>     result
>     >> 'exit-code'.
>     >> Jun 12 15:46:45 onlo systemd[1]: Failed to start unbound.service -
>     >> Unbound DNS server.
>     >>
>     >> =============================
>     >>
>     >> restart works just fine from my login.
>     >>
>     >> So why "restart counter is at 5."  And at first I tried
>     >> StartLimitBurst=2.  I changed it to 3.  Note that it is only
>     trying 2 times.
>     >>
>     >> What am I missing here?
>     > Did you reboot the machine or issue `systemctl daemon-reload`
>     after the changes?
>
>     Just rebooted.  No daemon-reload.
>
>     > Finally, what does `journalctl -u unbound.service` have to say?
>
>     I had to work a little bit to find the messages from the reboot.
>     And I
>     don't think these are them, rather from when I did the restart? 
>     Based
>     on uptime and current time, I calculate the system was booted
>     closer to
>     15:00 and prior to this messages are from 14:45 and are queries.
>
>     So it looks like there are problems with the content of my
>     override.conf?
>
>     Jun 12 15:16:12 onlo systemd[1]:
>     /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d/override.conf:3: Failed to
>     parse
>     sec value, ignoring: 30  # Allow restarts within a 30-second interval
>     Jun 12 15:16:12 onlo systemd[1]:
>     /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d/override.conf:4: Failed to
>     parse
>     unsigned value, ignoring: 2         # Allow a maximum of 2 restarts
>     within the interval
>     Jun 12 15:16:12 onlo systemd[1]:
>     /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d/override.conf:8: Failed to
>     parse
>     service restart specifier, ignoring: on-failure        # Restart
>     on failure
>     Jun 12 15:16:12 onlo systemd[1]:
>     /etc/systemd/system/unbound.service.d/override.conf:9: Failed to
>     parse
>     sec value, ignoring: 10             # Wait 10 seconds before
>     restarting
>     Jun 12 15:16:12 onlo systemd[1]: unbound.service: Service has more
>     than
>     one ExecStart= setting, which is only allowed for Type=oneshot
>     services.
>     Refusing.
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: service stopped
>     (unbound 1.19.2).
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo systemd[1]: Stopping unbound.service - unbound...
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: server stats for
>     thread 0: 16 queries, 0 answers from cache, 16 recursions, 0
>     prefetch, 0
>     rejected by ip ratelimiting
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: server stats for
>     thread 0: requestlist max 3 avg 0.5625 exceeded 0 jostled 0
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: mesh has 0
>     recursion
>     states (0 with reply, 0 detached), 0 waiting replies, 16 recursion
>     replies sent, 0 replies dropped, 0 states jostled out
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: average recursion
>     processing time 0.333283 sec
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: histogram of
>     recursion processing times
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: [25%]=0.131072
>     median[50%]=0.23593 [75%]=0.524288
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info: lower(secs)
>     upper(secs) recursions
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.001024
>     0.002048 1
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.008192
>     0.016384 2
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.065536
>     0.131072 1
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.131072
>     0.262144 5
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.262144
>     0.524288 3
>     Jun 12 15:16:51 onlo unbound[1823]: [1823:0] info:    0.524288
>     1.000000 4
>
>
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