dnscrypt-proxy service failed to start

[saywebsolutions]

I fired up an instance attempting to use dnscrypt with quad9 but once connected to the VPN instance DNS seems to be down. I connected to the instance and see this from dnscrypt-proxy:

algo@server5:~$ sudo systemctl status dnscrypt-proxy.service
● dnscrypt-proxy.service - DNSCrypt client proxy
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/dnscrypt-proxy.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/dnscrypt-proxy.service.d
└─99-algo.conf
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2021-03-11 18:47:00 UTC; 1s ago
TriggeredBy: ● dnscrypt-proxy.socket
Docs: https://github.com/DNSCrypt/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki
Process: 7830 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/dnscrypt-proxy -config /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTIO$
Main PID: 7830 (code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION)

Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 systemd[1]: Started DNSCrypt client proxy.
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 dnscrypt-proxy[7830]: config option `refused_code_in_responses` is deprecated, use `blocked_query_response`
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 dnscrypt-proxy[7830]: dnscrypt-proxy 2.0.31
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 dnscrypt-proxy[7830]: Network connectivity detected
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 dnscrypt-proxy[7830]: Source [/tmp/public-resolvers.md] loaded
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 dnscrypt-proxy[7830]: No servers configured
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 systemd[1]: dnscrypt-proxy.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=255/EXCEPTION
Mar 11 18:47:00 server5 systemd[1]: dnscrypt-proxy.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

Any recommendations or ideas on what's going wrong or where to start debugging?

[davidemyers]

What did you put in config.cfg? I use this:

dnscrypt_servers:
  ipv4:
    - quad9-doh-ip4-filter-pri
  ipv6:
    - quad9-doh-ip6-filter-pri

[saywebsolutions]

i used

dnscrypt_servers:
  ipv4:
    – quad9-doh-ip4-filter-pri
    – quad9-doh-ip4-filter-alt
  ipv6:
    – quad9-doh-ip6-filter-pri
    – quad9-doh-ip6-filter-alt

based on a comment on a blog post I was reading earlier (I think it was you commenting here: https://georgemaschke.net/2019/03/12/how-to-use-quad9-9-9-9-9-dns-resolution-with-algo-vpn-in-2019/)

[davidemyers]

They got rid of the alt servers but I think it should still work. On your AlgoVPN try editing /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml to remove the alt servers from server_names and see if it starts then.

Also make sure the quad9 servers still appear in /tmp/public-resolvers.md.

[saywebsolutions]

the server_names parameter in dnscrypt-proxy.toml is as follows:

server_names = ['–', ' ', 'q', 'u', 'a', 'd', '9', '-', 'd', 'o', 'h', '-', 'i', 'p', '4', '-', 'f', 'i', 'l', 't', 'e', 'r', '-', 'p', 'r', 'i', ' ', '–', ' ', 'q', 'u', 'a', 'd', '9', '-', 'd', 'o', 'h', '-', 'i', 'p', '4', '-', 'f', 'i', 'l', 't', 'e', 'r', '-', 'a', 'l', 't', '–', ' ', 'q', 'u', 'a', 'd', '9', '-', 'd', 'o', 'h', '-', 'i', 'p', '6', '-', 'f', 'i', 'l', 't', 'e', 'r', '-', 'p', 'r', 'i', ' ', '–', ' ', 'q', 'u', 'a', 'd', '9', '-', 'd', 'o', 'h', '-', 'i', 'p', '6', '-', 'f', 'i', 'l', 't', 'e', 'r', '-', 'a', 'l', 't']

The quad9 entries do exist in /tmp/public-resolvers.md file

[davidemyers]

Here is a script that can validate YAML like config.cfg.

[saywebsolutions]

interesting; thank you for the help. I got it working initially by commenting out server_names which then allowed it to use the full list of providers ranked by latency/speed it looks like.

I'll try now with the correct quad9 server_names set.

[saywebsolutions]

working now, thank you very much! I'll check to see if there is anything funny about my starting config.cfg file

[saywebsolutions]

that python script did not report any errors with my algo config.cfg so a bit of a head scratcher, in any case thanks again for your help

[davidemyers]

I was just thinking that if there was an error then Algo probably would have failed, so never mind the validator.

Look for tabs where there should be spaces, or something like that.