[PLUG] changing permissions for libraries in a named chroot

[sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>]

hey guys,

i'm completely stupefied on this one.

i have a server running bind 8 in a chroot jail.  it's the master for
a few zones and slave to a few more.  every now and then, it breaks
for its slave zones, with the following message in the logs:

18-Dec-2003 11:20:29.004 default: error: can't exec /bin/named-xfer: Permission denied

the problem ended up being that the permissions on the libraries in the
chroot weren't set with the execute bit, which was apparently necessary.
so when a master zone for our slave changed their dns records, we
couldn't transfer the new record, and as soon as the old record expired,
our server would _completely drop the zone_, answering authorative "does
not exist" for every name in the zone!

so i chmod a+x'd all the libraries, restarted named, and everything
started working again.  however, about a month later[1] the problem came
back.  same fix, and it worked again.  and now, it happened again.  i
have no idea what could be changing these permissions on me.  the system
does not have any startup scripts, cron jobs, or at jobs that call chmod
on those files.  does named/named-xfer do something under the hood 
to these files?

has this happened to anyone else?


thanks for any insight,
	sean

[1] that was the next time the symptoms arose, which only happens after
    the permissions have changed _and_ a master updates their zone info

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