named service suddenly fails to start

[Bruce Johnson]

This morning our server started failing to reload or start. 

checking the status reveals not a lot of info:

systemctl status named-chroot
● named-chroot.service - Berkeley Internet Name Domain (DNS)
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/named-chroot.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2021-11-04 11:55:17 MST; 27s ago
  Process: 2020 ExecStartPre=/bin/bash -c if [ ! "$DISABLE_ZONE_CHECKING" == "yes" ]; then /usr/sbin/named-checkconf -t /var/named/chroot -z "$NAMEDCONF"; else echo "Checking of zone files is disabled"; fi (code=exit>

Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone 126.140.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 4
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone 233.196.128.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 350
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone pharm-classless.124.135.150.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 4830
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone bio5-classless.123.135.150.in-addr.arpa/IN: loaded serial 402
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone 18.129.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 4755
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone 19.129.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 4756
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir bash[2020]: zone 118.193.10.IN-ADDR.ARPA/IN: loaded serial 9
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir systemd[1]: named-chroot.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir systemd[1]: named-chroot.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Nov 04 11:55:17 elixir systemd[1]: Failed to start Berkeley Internet Name Domain (DNS).

We have one dynamically updated zone and only three other zone files that have been updated today and named-checkzone says they’re ok.

I'm guessing it’s the zone file after the last successfully loaded one, but we have a LOT of zone files; is there a particular order in which they’re loaded at startup? I’ve made no changed to named.conf or anything else on this server.

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs