Bug 2355909

Summary:	systemctl start ddclient fails
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora EPEL	Reporter:	Chris Webster <cjw>
Component:	ddclient	Assignee:	Scott Talbert <swt>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	epel9	CC:	ctubbsii, i, swt, trpost
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	---
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:		Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Chris Webster 2025-03-29 02:19:32 UTC

Description of problem:
"systemctl start ddclient" hangs and then times out.  Debug messages complain about not being able to create PID file.

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

ddclient-3.9.1-8.el9.noarch.rpm

How reproducible:

Very


Steps to Reproduce:
1.systemctl start ddclient
2.
3.

Actual results:

Hangs and times out.


Expected results:

A prompt

Additional info:

Removing the PIDfile=" from the /usr/lib/systemd/system/ddclient.service file fixes the problem.  It looks like both ddclient and systemctl are vying to create the PID file, and the second one generates the error and times out.  Possible conflict having pidfile specified in two config files (ddclient.conf and ddclient.service).

Comment 1 Scott Talbert 2025-03-31 00:29:00 UTC

Unable to reproduce this.  Installed ddclient-3.9.1-8.el9 on a CentOS Stream 9 machine.  Ran 'systemctl start ddclient.service'.  It started fine.  Any more details on your situation?  Perhaps you have made config file changes?

Comment 2 Chris Webster 2025-03-31 00:50:49 UTC

Our ddclient.conf is:

daemon=600                              # check every 300 seconds
syslog=yes                              # log update msgs to syslog
ssl=yes
# mail=root                             # mail all msgs to root
# mail-failure=root                     # mail failed update msgs to root
pid=/var/run/ddclient.pid               # record PID in file.
#
server=members.dyndns.com
protocol=dyndns2
login=eolxxxxx
password=xxxxxxxxx
use=web, web=checkip.dyndns.com/, web-skip='IP Address:'
#
rafhost.dyndns.org

Comment 3 Scott Talbert 2025-04-01 02:18:19 UTC

OK, I was able to reproduce using your config.  Must be some sort of race condition or something.

Anyway, it seems systemd type=forking is sort of discouraged now, and upstream ddclient switched it's example to use exec, so I've done that in rawhide.

I'll backport it to epel9 after a bit.

Comment 4 Chris Webster 2025-04-01 02:31:13 UTC

Thanks for the update on forking.

So, I noticed today that my ddclient.conf file, which has been migrated from el7 to el8 to el9, has a different pid directory (/var/run/ instead of /run/ddclient/).  When I changed it to match the filename in your .service file, things worked.  And your package has the same name in both files (/run/ddclient/ddclient.pid).  I should have caught that earlier.

Comment 5 Christopher Tubbs 2025-05-13 20:43:57 UTC

I had the exact same issue after upgrading to Fedora 42. The issue was solved with:

    sudo mkdir /etc/ddclient && sudo mv /etc/ddclient.conf /etc/ddclient/

Affects: ddclient-4.0.0-1.fc42.noarch (`rpm -ql ddclient` shows that the RPM still installs to /etc/ddclient.conf)

Comment 6 Scott Talbert 2025-05-13 21:11:41 UTC

Sorry, Christopher, that bug was supposed to have been fixed by this update, which was stalled for F42 because someone had a problem on Silverblue:
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2025-0a0a04ceb5