Websites hosted in Plesk cannot be accessed on Debian/Ubuntu after a dist-upgrade: DNSPROBE FINISHED ERROR

Symptoms

• Websites cannot be opened with the following error message in a web browser like:

  DNSPROBE FINISHED ERROR

• The following error message is logged in the system log /var/log/syslog or is shown in the BIND service status:

  named[1103212]: client @0x7fa2cc0406a0 203.0.113.2#32129 (example.com): query (cache) 'example.com/A/IN' denied

• Domain name from the error message is not resolved locally:

  # dig +short exampe.com @localhost
  #

Cause

BIND configuration is incorrect: BIND service startup option is different from the below:

# grep OPTIONS /etc/default/named
...
OPTIONS=" -t /var/named/run-root -c /etc/named.conf -u bind -n 2"

This may happen after a dist-upgrade.

Resolution

1. Connect to the Plesk server via SSH.

2. Open the file /etc/default/named in a text editor. In this example, we are using the vi editor:

   # vi /etc/default/named

3. Find the OPTIONS parameter and change its value to:

   OPTIONS=" -t /var/named/run-root -c /etc/named.conf -u bind -n 2"

4. Save the changes and close the file.

5. Restart the BIND service:

   # service named restart

   # service bind9 restart