On 2017-01-15, Damian McGuckin <[email protected]> wrote:
> With the advent of NSD which in normal operations would be configured to 
> not even use port 53, and a dilemma (noted below), I had a need to try and 
> query NSD directly on a port other than port 53.

In normal operations NSD _does_ run on port 53.

> Anyway, my question is, should we limit nslookup or dig to query solely on 
> port 53. I notice that the difference between a old version of OpenBSD dig 
> which allows the '-pPORT#', and that of '6.0' which does not, is just

Prior to the change to make -p an error, but after the dns pledge was added,
-p was allowed but ignored with a warning. See the commit adding SOCK_DNS.

> Maybe I need more enlightening on my poor understanding of pledge as to 
> why restricting the port number to only 53 is needed.

Some people just use dig for looking up DNS records and I think for them
the dns pledge restrictions are a useful way to limit bug damage.

Others use dig as a DNS server debugging tool and I think in those cases
the port restriction (and forcing traffic through rebound if it's running)
can get in the way.

> I could not do such tests from an OpenBSD machine because in 6.0, the port 
> command on 'nslookup' is disabled and the option 'p', -pPORT#, on 'dig' is 
> tweaked to not change anything. See further below.

Alternatively you could use the version of dig from packages which doesn't use
pledge:

pkg_add isc-bind
/usr/local/bin/dig -p

However, because this one doesn't use pledge at all, bugs are a bigger risk.

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