[stunnel-users] [PHISH] stunnel exits silently on startup

Mon Jul 21 10:33:43 CEST 2008

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 12:00:17PM -0400, Luis L?pez de Quintana wrote:
> Problem: stunnel doesn't run:
> 
> ldq at ldq:~$ stunnel4 /etc/stunnel.cnf
> ldq at ldq:~$ ps aux | grep stunnel
> ldq      15683  0.0  0.0   2332  1392 pts/0    S+   11:08   0:00 man stunnel
> ldq      25289  0.0  0.0   1776   608 pts/1    S+   11:59   0:00 grep
> stunnel

Okay, so it's not running; but has it logged any error messages using
the system's syslog?  Is there anything stunnel-related in, say,
/var/log/messages, /var/log/syslog, /var/log/daemon.log or anything
similar?

> stunnel.cnf:
> ldq at ldq:~$ cat /etc/stunnel.cnf
> client = yes
> debug = debug

To keep stunnel's messages into a separate file, you might also add
output = /var/log/stunnel.log
and then you'll know for sure if it logs anything.  Of course, it
will need permission to write to that file - it seems to me that you
might be trying to run stunnel as a non-root user, nothing wrong with
that, but then it might not be able to read its certificates and stuff.

For debugging purposes, try something like:

debug = debug
foreground = yes

For normal use, try this instead:

debug = debug
output = /home/your-username/stunnel.log

> [nntps]
> accept = 127.0.0.1:1109
> connect = news.giganews.com:443

This section looks fine.  Now the most probable cause - IF you are
running stunnel as a non-root user - would be that it is looking for
its certificates in, say, /etc/stunnel.conf or something, and you do
not have permission to read that file.

No matter if you are running it as root or not, try running it with
foreground = yes so it does not daemonize and it sends all its output
to the standard error stream where you can see it.

> Version: stunnel 4.140-5ubuntu1
> libc6
> 
> ldq at ldq:~$ uname -a
> Linux ldq 2.6.18.5 SMP Thu May 8 01:31:23 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Peter Pentchev	roam at ringlet.net    roam at cnsys.bg    roam at FreeBSD.org
PGP key:	http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint	FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E  DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553
I am the meaning of this sentence.
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