First Install via RHEL 7.6 not working (FTL/DNS Services won't start)

Expected Behaviour:

I would think that FTL & dnsmasq would start but it appears that they're fighting for the same port. Based on what I've read, FTL is supposed to replace dnsmasq right? Which should or shouldn't be running?

Actual Behaviour:

Anytime I try to run `systemctl start pi-hole-FTL.service, I get the below error:

[root@unifi ~]# systemctl status pihole-FTL
● pihole-FTL.service - LSB: pihole-FTL daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/pihole-FTL; bad; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Thu 2019-01-10 01:23:28 EST; 7min ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 30475 ExecStop=/etc/rc.d/init.d/pihole-FTL stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 30280 ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/pihole-FTL start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi systemd[1]: Starting LSB: pihole-FTL daemon...
Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi pihole-FTL[30280]: Not running
Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi pihole-FTL[30280]: /etc/rc.d/init.d/pihole-FTL: line 42: /sbin/resolvconf: No such file or directory
Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi su[30302]: (to pihole) root on none
Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi pihole-FTL[30280]: dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Address already in use
Jan 10 01:23:23 unifi systemd[1]: Started LSB: pihole-FTL daemon.
Jan 10 01:23:28 unifi systemd[1]: Stopping LSB: pihole-FTL daemon...
Jan 10 01:23:28 unifi pihole-FTL[30475]: Not running
Jan 10 01:23:28 unifi systemd[1]: Stopped LSB: pihole-FTL daemon.

If I try to restart the service, it tells me that port 53 is in use. Here's the netstat output where it appears dnsmasq is listening on 53 but the dnsmasq service is inactive.

Netstat Output:

[root@unifi ~]# netstat -tulpn | grep ":53 "
tcp 0 0 192.168.122.1:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 4495/dnsmasq
udp 0 0 192.168.122.1:53 0.0.0.0:* 4495/dnsmasq

[root@unifi ~]# systemctl status dnsmasq.service
● dnsmasq.service - DNS caching server.
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/dnsmasq.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2019-01-10 01:14:13 EST; 19min ago
Main PID: 25506 (code=exited, status=2)

Jan 10 01:14:13 unifi systemd[1]: Started DNS caching server..
Jan 10 01:14:13 unifi dnsmasq[25506]: dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Address already in use
Jan 10 01:14:13 unifi systemd[1]: dnsmasq.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=2/INVALIDARGUMENT
Jan 10 01:14:13 unifi systemd[1]: Unit dnsmasq.service entered failed state.
Jan 10 01:14:13 unifi systemd[1]: dnsmasq.service failed.

Debug Token:

Debug Token is: 33rhvwv9wk

Thank you for any help and insight!

In V4.0, dnsmasq is embedded in pihole-FTL, and dnsmasq no longer runs as a separate process. The debug log will show dnsmasq as either failed or inactive. Process pihole-FTL should be shown running on port 53.

https://docs.pi-hole.net/ftldns/dns-resolver/

1 Like

This solved it! Thanks guys! -- I was reading around last night and read where someone tried that and it worked for me as well. Long story short, I had to run the following to get pihole-FTL to work properly:

systemctl stop dnsmasq
systemctl disable dnsmasq

issued a system reboot on my linux server and all is well :smiley: Ads are blocked. Thanks for the help guys! This can be closed.

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