Bug 158429

Summary: vpnc-script messes with /etc/resolv.conf unconditionally
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Alexandre Oliva <oliva>
Component: vpncAssignee: Tomas Mraz <tmraz>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: rawhideCC: wtogami
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OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2005-05-22 07:07:43 UTC Type: ---
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Description Alexandre Oliva 2005-05-22 06:21:27 UTC
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Description of problem:
vpnc used to leave /etc/resolv.conf and routes alone.  The new vpnc-script is certainly a nice improvement over having to set everything up by hand, but unfortunately it breaks arrangements in which things were set up by hand.  Ideally, vpnc shouldn't change its behavior so wildly without a command-line option or something to enable the use of the new script.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like simply removing the script or replacing it with a do-nothing script reverts to vpnc's historical behavior.

Personally, I'd really like to have some easy means to disable modification of /etc/resolv.conf.  In fact, the comment vpnc-script places in it is misleading: it gives the impression that, if I change that text, it will no longer mess with the file, but it still does and, worse, it fails to preserve the original, because /var/run/vpnc, where it tries to preserve it, is not created by the vpnc rpm.

I've disabled write_resolvconf in my copy of vpnc to achieve what I wanted (my named.conf takes care of forwarding the domains I want to the vpn server, while still enabling me to resolve names in my internal home network).

Either way, I don't think overwriting /etc/resolv.conf's nameserver lines is a good idea, since it generally makes the most sense to resolve names using a local name server, and only use the vpn name server as a fallback when the local name server fails to resolve a name.  I realize this wouldn't work for broken internal/external name configurations though, and perhaps not even for reasonable ones.  Oh well...  DNS caches for all!

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
vpnc-0.3.3-1

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Connect to a vpnc server

Actual Results:  /etc/resolv.conf fails to be backed up and is overwritten, rendering names in my internal network, that is not part of the vpn, no longer resolvable.

Expected Results:  Retain historical behavior of vpnc, or introducing options in the configuration file to choose whether to replace, prepend, append or discard information such as DNS servers and routes.

Additional info:

Comment 1 Alexandre Oliva 2005-05-22 07:07:43 UTC
Sorry, it didn't look like it'd made it the first time, but it had.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 158428 ***