Unbound "Empty markkey" error

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David Flanigan

• November 14, 2025 12:15

I was poking arround in my firewalla via SSH and looked at the syslog. I am seeing the following lines over and over and over (about 6 every minute). I am using unbound - but is this an indication of a problem?

Nov 14 07:01:03 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey
Nov 14 07:01:14 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey
Nov 14 07:01:24 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey
Nov 14 07:01:31 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey
Nov 14 07:01:44 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey
Nov 14 07:01:54 localhost unbound: [17060:0] info: Empty markkey

Thoughts?

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• 

  Firewalla

  • November 15, 2025 20:53
  • Edited

  It is generally an informational message and usually not an error that indicates a problem.

  What it means:

  • info:: The message severity level is "info," meaning it's routine information rather than a warning or error.

  • Empty markkey:

    • This message appears when Unbound is configured to use the markkey feature (which is related to DNS packet tagging or classification), but the specific setting for the key is empty or unset for a particular query or process.

    • In many default or standard configurations where the markkey feature isn't actively being used or is commented out, this message can appear upon startup or during operation.

  Should you worry?

  In most cases, no.

  • If your DNS resolution is working correctly, you can safely ignore this informational message.

  • It only becomes relevant if you intended to use the markkey feature for advanced traffic classification or security policy enforcement within Unbound and are finding that it's not working as expected.

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