IPSEC tool Racoon Crashes and can't restart it

Question

I'm using a PowerBook Pro running Mac OSX 10.6.6 (Snow Leopard). I have been connecting to a client server using the built in VPN connector for months. Yesterday my connection wouldn't connect and was timing out. I checked with other remote developers and they had the same issue. The resolved it by killing the "racoon" process. I did the same and VPN connected.

I googled Racon to discover that it is an IPsec tool (http://ipsec-tools.sourceforge.net/)

This morning I had the same issue. I decided to first try to flush the info by using the racoonctl app to run: sudo racoonctl flush-sa ipsec

That didn;t work, so I decided to just kill the process. Sadly, I do not have a racoon process running now. So I rebooted. Still not process. I rebooted again and ran fsck. Still nothing.

I looked in the logs and it seems that racoon is crashing every 10 seconds (see below).

Anybody have any ideas on what I need to do to get this back up and running? This has seemed to happen out of the blue and it is eating up my time seriously at this point.

System Error:

__TEXT [0x100000000 - 0x10008f000) __eh_frame [0x1000821e8 - 0x10008eff8) /usr/sbin/racoon
Mar  9 12:35:11 pmolaro com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.racoon[2458]): Job appears to have crashed: Segmentation fault
Mar  9 12:35:11 pmolaro com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.racoon): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Mar  9 12:35:11 pmolaro com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[2454]: 2011-03-09 12:35:11.638 ReportCrash[2454:301b] Saved crash report for racoon[2458] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/racoon_2011-03-09-123511_localhost.crash

Crash Report:

Process:         racoon [720]
Path:            /usr/sbin/racoon
Identifier:      racoon
Version:         ??? (???)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [1]

Date/Time:       2011-03-09 10:42:19.831 -0500
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.6 (10J567)
Report Version:  6

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: 0x000000000000000d, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0

Thread 0 Crashed:
0   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc01723 dyld::setNewProgramVars(ProgramVars const&) + 64
1   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc0d8d9 ImageLoaderMachO::setupLazyPointerHandler(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&) + 297
2   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc18a19 ImageLoaderMachOCompressed::doBind(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool) + 57
3   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc0b5a2 ImageLoader::recursiveBind(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool) + 122
4   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc0c81b ImageLoader::link(ImageLoader::LinkContext const&, bool, bool, ImageLoader::RPathChain const&) + 171
5   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc04d48 dyld::link(ImageLoader*, bool, ImageLoader::RPathChain const&) + 118
6   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc068d6 dyld::_main(macho_header const*, unsigned long, int, char const**, char const**, char const**) + 2822
7   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc016d2 dyldbootstrap::start(macho_header const*, int, char const**, long) + 799
8   dyld                            0x00007fff5fc01052 _dyld_start + 42

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit):
  rax: 0x0000000000000001  rbx: 0x00000001000003c8  rcx: 0x0000000000000000  rdx: 0x0921b00000000100
  rdi: 0x000000010008fac0  rsi: 0x00007fff5fc277c1  rbp: 0x00007fff5fbfdac0  rsp: 0x00007fff5fbfdac0
   r8: 0x00007fff5fc444b0   r9: 0x0000000000000001  r10: 0x00007fff893d5d3f  r11: 0x00007fff5fc0d6aa
  r12: 0x00000001000002e0  r13: 0x0000000000000002  r14: 0x0000000100000000  r15: 0x00007fff5fc43be8
  rip: 0x00007fff5fc01723  rfl: 0x0000000000010206  cr2: 0x000000010008f048

Binary Images:
       0x100000000 -        0x10008eff7 +racoon ??? (???)  /usr/sbin/racoon
       0x1000a0000 -        0x1000a5fef  libipsec.A.dylib 300.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libipsec.A.dylib
    0x7fff5fc00000 -     0x7fff5fc3bdef  dyld 132.1 (???)  /usr/lib/dyld
    0x7fff80008000 -     0x7fff8000dfff  libpam.2.dylib 3.0.0 (compatibility 3.0.0)  /usr/lib/libpam.2.dylib
    0x7fff8125e000 -     0x7fff8141ffff  libSystem.B.dylib 125.2.1 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
    0x7fff81528000 -     0x7fff817aefff  com.apple.security 6.1.1 (37594)  /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/Security
    0x7fff817d8000 -     0x7fff81815fff  com.apple.LDAPFramework 2.0 (120.1)  /System/Library/Frameworks/LDAP.framework/Versions/A/LDAP
    0x7fff81c85000 -     0x7fff81c89ff7  libmathCommon.A.dylib 315.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
    0x7fff81fcf000 -     0x7fff81fefff7  com.apple.DirectoryService.Framework 3.6 (621.9)  /System/Library/Frameworks/DirectoryService.framework/Versions/A/DirectoryService
    0x7fff8259a000 -     0x7fff82617fef  libstdc++.6.dylib 7.9.0 (compatibility 7.0.0)  /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
    0x7fff82618000 -     0x7fff827d6fff  libicucore.A.dylib 40.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libicucore.A.dylib
    0x7fff82831000 -     0x7fff82952fe7  libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib 0.9.8 (compatibility 0.9.8)  /usr/lib/libcrypto.0.9.8.dylib
    0x7fff829cf000 -     0x7fff82a85fff  libobjc.A.dylib 227.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib
    0x7fff82cca000 -     0x7fff82cebfff  libresolv.9.dylib 41.0.0 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libresolv.9.dylib
    0x7fff84b80000 -     0x7fff84b91ff7  libz.1.dylib 1.2.3 (compatibility 1.0.0)  /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib
    0x7fff84c47000 -     0x7fff84c59fe7  libsasl2.2.dylib 3.15.0 (compatibility 3.0.0)  /usr/lib/libsasl2.2.dylib
    0x7fff85fb4000 -     0x7fff86000fff  libauto.dylib ??? (???)  /usr/lib/libauto.dylib
    0x7fff862a8000 -     0x7fff862e2fff  libssl.0.9.8.dylib 0.9.8 (compatibility 0.9.8)  /usr/lib/libssl.0.9.8.dylib
    0x7fff86ac2000 -     0x7fff86ac3ff7  com.apple.TrustEvaluationAgent 1.1 (1)  /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/TrustEvaluationAgent.framework/Versions/A/TrustEvaluationAgent
    0x7fff8735e000 -     0x7fff87374fef  libbsm.0.dylib ??? (???)  /usr/lib/libbsm.0.dylib
    0x7fff87375000 -     0x7fff8746dff7  libiconv.2.dylib 7.0.0 (compatibility 7.0.0)  /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
    0x7fff87593000 -     0x7fff875d4fff  com.apple.SystemConfiguration 1.10.5 (1.10.2)  /System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/A/SystemConfiguration
    0x7fff87ae1000 -     0x7fff87c58fe7  com.apple.CoreFoundation 6.6.4 (550.42)  /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation
    0x7fff87e02000 -     0x7fff87ebbfff  libsqlite3.dylib 9.6.0 (compatibility 9.0.0)  /usr/lib/libsqlite3.dylib
    0x7fff883a0000 -     0x7fff8844ffff  edu.mit.Kerberos 6.5.10 (6.5.10)  /System/Library/Frameworks/Kerberos.framework/Versions/A/Kerberos
    0x7fffffe00000 -     0x7fffffe01fff  libSystem.B.dylib ??? (???)  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 09 '11 at 18:28

I finally resolved my own issue. I used TimeMachine to replace the /usr/sbin/racoon and /usr/sbin/racoonctl files and rebooted my system. Now VPN works as expected. I am guessing that one of those files (probably racoon) was corrupted somehow.

On a side note, I did call Apple to get some help. I was willing to pay the support fee to get this issue resolved. After they read my information on this page I was informed that this issue was "beyond their technical training." I asked if I could speak to a higher level tech who would know something about the underpinnings of the OS and was told that wasn't an option. The tech finally recommended that I spend an hour and re-install my OS to fix the issue. Never once suggested TimeMachine either.

Moral of that story: Unless you need to know how to connect your printer or surf the web in an iPad, you probably don;t want to waste your time or money with Apple support. Sorry Apple, in this you have failed me! :(

Thanks for the good question and answer! Please go ahead and select your own answer as the one for this question to give yourself some credit! — jathanism, Mar 09 '11 at 21:19

IPSEC tool Racoon Crashes and can't restart it

System Error:

Crash Report:

1 Answers1