DNS zone issue on upgrade to plesk 10.4.4 MU 12

[burnleyvic]

Just a word of warning.

We recently upgraded a plesk 10.3.1 Centos 5.7 based server to plesk 10.4.4 MU 12 and it seriously stuffed up the DNZ zones.

It appears during the upgrade plesk injected part of the servers default DNS template into the custom DNS zone on upgrade. This resulted in duplicate A, MX & NS records.

For example we had two mail.<domain>.tld records one pointing to the clients IP and the other to the default IP of the server. Same issue with the MX records where the servers default MX was injected resulting in some of the clients mail being lost so be ware and test before you upgrade all of your servers.

 

[IgorG]

Most probably this issue caused by new schema of DNS zones described in http://kb.parallels.com/en/112966

 

[burnleyvic]

Hey Igor, thanks for replying. In our case, for the affected server we have:

mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow ` psa -e 'select * from misc where param = "subdomain_own_zones"'
+---------------------+-------+
| param | val |
+---------------------+-------+
| subdomain_own_zones | false |
+---------------------+-------+

The bug may or may not be related to your recent changes for the subdomains, I don't know.

What we don't understand is: why on Earth did Parallels software architects decide that it's a good thing to restore the DNS records from the templates in this manner for parent domains? This breaks essential DNS functionality, responsabile among other things, with mail routing! Also (rhetorically speaking), how much software design review and internal testing has been conducted @ Parallels before releasing such a broken "feature"?

 

[Oddst]

because they dont fu=king care

Plesk is an unstable mess and every update adds more problems! For instance everytime i add an account i have to add this through shell:
/usr/local/psa/bin/dns --add domainname.com -ns "" -nameserver ns.domainname.com

I would have thought this would be fixed by now, but nope.

I have to manually remove all the plesk billing and assorted garbage packages that install because Plesk ignores my upgrade settings. I'm not real likely to use your billing software if I cant trust a the CP software to add an account without choking...

 

[burnleyvic]

Can't say I've had that issue when deploying new domains, it adds our 4 name servers with out issue. What we are not happy about is the fact new records were injected into an existing zone file when there was absolutely no need even when taking into account it creating separate zones for sub-domains.

 

[Oddst]

sorry, that was a rage vent...

Sorry to be semi-incoherent, like I said, my response was a rage post since this and a couple other issues have been irritating me since November. I've gotten pretty good at resolvingthem, but the bitterness grows everytime I have to deal with the problems...

Can you remove the additional PSA records and restart named or do you need a similar ns.domain.xxx in addition to the actual nameserver records? It seems strange every account requires /usr/local/psa/bin/dns --add domain.xxx -ns "" -nameserver ns.domain.xxx. It appears PSA requires a ns.domain.com record for every domain, even when nsx.nameserver.xxx exists.

I know its not a huge deal, it just ticks me off that its even an issue...

Sorry to have flown off the handle in your post!

 

[burnleyvic]

You don't have two or more dns servers you configure in the plesk DNS template? e.g dns1.yourhost.com dns2.your host.com This way the template for each client only needs to have the two corresponding ns records and thats it no need to create a ns 'A' record place holder for each domain.

 

[Oddst]

thats my gripe...

I have the correct A records for ns1.domain.xxx through ns4.domain.xxx pointing to the correct nameservers. I have to create an additional A record for ns.newdomain.xxx to prevent named choking.

Now the best part is if i restart the server without the extra A record, it garbles the network interface and i have to do a reimage and restore all the accounts. Of course, that is all screwed up as well, and produces more problems, but . I figured that out last Nov i applied the 10.4 update and my accounts all went down. I was tired from a really long week, and hit shutdown -r now... I was locked out of the server, the network interface was garbled and my DC decided it was a HDD failure. It was a huge waste of time and money, since i had to pay for the DC's work. After a bunch of extra work, I got the server back online, ran the PSA update and the problem reappeared. It was easy to isoloate as Plesk issue that time, and a sw-soft tech gave me the wonderful "/usr/local/psa/bin/dns --add domain.xxx-ns "" -nameserver ns.domain.xxx" fix.

I hope you can see why I'm angry about the situation. I don't like having to use Plesks default DNS records, I don't like having to have an extra ns record, and I'm bitter about the extra twenty hours of work and extreme stress this caused me. So, everytime I have to deal with another buggy update I end up rage venting about the issue.

I don't think that setting things back to defualt, requiring odd A records or having named issues that screw the network interface is acceptable.

Oh, and the real pisser is I never even got an apology for the wasted time and money their lackluster software caused me.

I'm an angry customer and I'm spreading the word.

 

[Oddst]

Bottom Line

I lost clients over this, so these issues directly cost me money and damaged my reputation.

 

[IgorG]

burnleyvic, as far as I see you have already submitted ticket to Support Team. Ticket in progress now. I hope that after providing access to your server, expirienced supporters will find a reason of this issue and submit bugreport if necessary. Please keep this thread updted with results of investigation. Thank you for cooperation.

 

[IgorG]

Oddst, looks like you have issue described in http://kb.parallels.com/en/113119

 

[Oddst]

Thanks Igor...

Yeah Igor, that's it.

I understand it's a very minor requirement, but I still like to be able to control my own DNS records... You see my gripe?

I appreciate your taking the time to respond. I should remember to not make an elephant out of a fly

 

[IgorG]

Issue cause by absence NS records for domain in DNS template. Every server DNS zone must have an NS record. Why it is bug if you have changed your DNS template so that requirement is broken?

 

[Oddst]

Ah, but there is not a missing NS record, Plesk just needs that little extra somethin-somethin to work...

This was fine until one of your programers got it in their head to require the extra ns record.


ns1.<domain>.
NS ns1. nameserver.com.

ns1.<domain>.
A <xx.xx.xx.xx>

ns2.<domain>.
NS ns2. nameserver.com.

ns2.<domain>.
A <xx.xx.xx.xx>

ns3.<domain>.
NS ns1.nameserver.com.

ns3.<domain>.
A <xx.xx.xx.xx>

ns4.<domain>.
NS ns2. nameserver.com.

ns4.<domain>.
A <xx.xx.xx.xx>

Anyway, the update took, life goes on... I already figured out how to deal with the bug, and I'm wasting your time being a dick.

Thanks for your help, and I'm sorry I'm not having any of it... Peace; j

 

[Oddst]

Issue cause by absence NS records for domain in DNS template. Every server DNS zone must have an NS record. Why it is bug if you have changed your DNS template so that requirement is broken?

Well, number 1. the NS.xxxx.xxx is obnoxious since PLESK decided that I HAVE to use NS instead of allowing me to choose my own Nameserver prefix.

Number 2. http://kb.parallels.com/en/113119 didnt work, and I still have to add the records through shell. So, now I have PLESKS mandatory NS in my default template plus get to add it by hand everytime i create an account. So yea, I stand by my statment that your software is buggy and unreliable.

 

[IgorG]

burnleyvic, There is login credentials request in ticket without your answer. Is this problem still actual for you? You can send login credentials for your server to me in PM too.

 

[burnleyvic]

Igor, we're in touch with your technical support as you know already and we're trying to find a way to reproduce the bug without having to resort to shell access. Will keep you all posted about the progress and resolution.

 

[burnleyvic]

Igor, we've got the confirmation from your Tech Support that the developers have reproduced the bug internally following these steps:
1. do a fresh 10.2.x installation
2. define a DNS template.
3. create a customer with two domains:
- one with default zone, template based.
- one with custom zone configuration, e.g. different NS and MX records from the template.
4. upgrade to 10.3.1 and check the zones
5. upgrade to 10.4.4#MU12 and check the zones

 

[IgorG]

Yes, really. We are working on this issue and I hope that fix will be included to the one of nearest microupdate.

 

[IgorG]

burnleyvic, as I see in your support ticket this issue was not reproduced by support engineers. Recommendations of how to avoid loosing custom DNS records when upgrading to 10.4.4 have been requested and will be provided to you in ticket.