[Kea-users] DDNS doesn't update local zone

Darren Ankney darren.ankney at gmail.com
Tue Nov 11 18:34:47 UTC 2025


Hi Ale,

Your loggers section indicates that there should be a large amount of
information heading to syslog.  I believe you are encountering this:
https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues/3921 whose fix was
backported to 2.6.4 here:
https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues/3992

Thank you,
Darren Ankney

On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 11:49 AM Alessandro Vesely <vesely at tana.it> wrote:
>
> Hi Darren,
>
> thanks for taking care.
>
> One day after, all the other three clients have renewed (I can see the updated expire time in dhcp4.csv[.2].)  All I have in the logs is this:
>
> Nov 10 12:08:17 190 north kea-dhcp-ddns: INFO  [kea-dhcp-ddns.dctl.140480598193344] DCTL_STARTING DhcpDdns starting, pid: 15727, version: 2.6.3 (stable)
> Nov 10 12:23:45 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.dhcp4.140607992743872] DHCP4_STARTING Kea DHCPv4 server version 2.6.3 (stable) starting
> Nov 10 12:23:45 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.commands.140607992743872] COMMAND_RECEIVED Received command 'config-set'
> Nov 10 12:24:55 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.dhcp4.140458599126976] DHCP4_STARTING Kea DHCPv4 server version 2.6.3 (stable) starting
> Nov 10 12:24:55 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.commands.140458599126976] COMMAND_RECEIVED Received command 'config-set'
> Nov 10 12:25:45 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.dhcp4.140267918301120] DHCP4_STARTING Kea DHCPv4 server version 2.6.3 (stable) starting
> Nov 10 12:25:45 190 north kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.commands.140267918301120] COMMAND_RECEIVED Received command 'config-set'
> Nov 10 12:47:54 190 north kea-dhcp-ddns: INFO  [kea-dhcp-ddns.dctl.140298412311744] DCTL_STARTING DhcpDdns starting, pid: 17117, version: 2.6.3 (stable)
>
> DHCP dialog, as shown by dhcpdum running on the server, looks fine.
>
> Both commands are running with option -c <their config file>.  The logging section for one:
>
>                 "loggers":
>                 [
>                         {
>                                 // This section affects kea-dhcp4, which is the base logger for DHCPv4
>                                 // component. It tells DHCPv4 server to write all log messages (on
>                                 // severity INFO or more) to a file.
>                                 "name": "kea-dhcp4",
>                                 "output_options":
>                                 [
>                                         {
>                                                 "output": "syslog:local7",
>
>                                                 // Default is "%-5p [%c.%t] %m\n";
>                                                 // %-5p The severity of the message
>                                                 // %c The log source. This includes two elements: kea-dhcp4 and library.
>                                                 // %i The process ID.
>                                                 // %t The thread ID.
>                                                 // %m The log message itself.
>
>                                                 "pattern": "%m\n",
>
>                                                 // This governs whether the log output is flushed to disk after
>                                                 // every write.  The default is true (?)
>                                                 "flush": false
>
>                                                 // This specifies the maximum size of the file before it is
>                                                 // rotated.
>                                                 // "maxsize": 1048576,
>
>                                                 // This specifies the maximum number of rotated files to keep.
>                                                 // "maxver": 8
>                                         }
>                                 ],
>                                 // This specifies the severity of log messages to keep. Supported values
>                                 // are: FATAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG
>                                 "severity": "DEBUG",
>
>                                 // If DEBUG level is specified, this value is used. 0 is least verbose,
>                                 // 99 is most verbose. If severity for the logger is not DEBUG, this
>                                 // value is ignored.
>                                 "debuglevel": 99
>                         }
>                 ]
>
> For the other:
>
>    "loggers": [
>      {
>          // This specifies the logging for D2 (DHCP-DDNS) daemon.
>          "name": "kea-dhcp-ddns",
>          "output-options": [
>              {
>                  // Specifies the output file. There are several special values
>                  // supported:
>                  // - stdout (prints on standard output)
>                  // - stderr (prints on standard error)
>                  // - syslog (logs to syslog)
>                  // - syslog:name (logs to syslog using specified name)
>                  // Any other value is considered a name of the file
>                  "output": "syslog:local7",
>
>                  // Shorter log pattern suitable for use with systemd,
>                  // avoids redundant information
>                  "pattern": "%m\n"
>
>                  // This governs whether the log output is flushed to disk after
>                  // every write.
>                  // "flush": false,
>
>                  // This specifies the maximum size of the file before it is
>                  // rotated.
>                  // "maxsize": 1048576,
>
>                  // This specifies the maximum number of rotated files to keep.
>                  // "maxver": 8
>              }
>          ],
>          // This specifies the severity of log messages to keep. Supported values
>          // are: FATAL, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG
>          "severity": "DEBUG",
>
>          // If DEBUG level is specified, this value is used. 0 is least verbose,
>          // 99 is most verbose. Be cautious, Kea can generate lots and lots
>          // of logs if told to do so.
>          "debuglevel": 99
>      }
>    ]
>
>
> One strange thing is their opening the lockfile many times:
>
> 818-north:/# for p in $(pgrep -u _kea); do lsof -p $p | grep lockfile; done
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea   3u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea   4u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea   5u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea   6u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea  21u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea  22u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea  23u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea  24u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp4 21436 _kea  25u      REG     0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp- 21479 _kea   3u      REG               0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp- 21479 _kea   4u      REG               0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp- 21479 _kea   6u      REG               0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
> kea-dhcp- 21479 _kea  14u      REG               0,25        0        6 /run/lock/kea/logger_lockfile
>
>
> What else can I test?
>
>
> Best
> Ale
>
>
> On Tue 11/Nov/2025 13:11:03 +0100 Darren Ankney wrote:
> > Hi Ale,
> >
> > As a sanity check, is Kea logging other clients messages as expected
> > if you release and renew?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Darren Ankney
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 7:08 AM Alessandro Vesely <vesely at tana.it> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >> I recently upgraded to Devuan Excalibur, equivalent to Debian Trixie, and had
> >> some difficulty starting the Kea daemons. Now they're running.  However, a
> >> client somehow got a different IP than it had before.
> >>
> >> The host name and PTR records still use the previous IP.
> >>
> >> I tried to fix it by issuing dhclient -r/ dhclient.  As a result, I have
> >> several records showing the new IP in /var/lib/dhcp4.csv, but the DNS records
> >> are unchanged.
> >>
> >> In kea-dhcp4 both enable-updates and ddns-send-updates are set to true.
> >>
> >> In both kea-dhcp4.conf and kea-dhcp-ddns.conf I set debuglevel to 99, but, upon
> >> restarting, I only got the two lines
> >>
> >> kea-dhcp4: INFO  [kea-dhcp4.commands.140267918301120] COMMAND_RECEIVED Received
> >> command 'config-set'
> >>
> >> and
> >>
> >> kea-dhcp-ddns: INFO  [kea-dhcp-ddns.dctl.140298412311744] DCTL_STARTING
> >> DhcpDdns starting, pid: 17117, version: 2.6.3 (stable)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Dhcp releases and subsequent discover, offer, request and ack are not logged.
> >>
> >>
> >> Is there a way to force the DNS to sync?
> >>
> >>
> >> Best
> >> Ale
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
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> >>
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> >> Kea-users at lists.isc.org
>
> --
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