with sudo, get error no servers configured

[IntelligenceInside]

THE TRACKER IS DEDICATED TO KEEPING TRACK OF BUGS,
preferably after they have been already discussed and confirmed to be reproducible.

FOR ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CLOSE THIS FORM AND USE THE DISCUSSIONS SECTION INSTEAD:
https://github.com/DNSCrypt/dnscrypt-proxy/discussions/categories/q-a

## Output of the following commands:

./dnscrypt-proxy -version
2.15

used as sudo ./dnscrypt-proxy -check 

[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Dropping privileges
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [UDP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [TCP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-servers] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [FATAL] No servers configured


without sudo ./dnscrypt-proxy -resolve example.com

[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Dropping privileges
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [FATAL] listen udp 127.0.0.1:53: bind: permission denied





## *What* is affected by this bug?

[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Dropping privileges
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [UDP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [TCP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-servers] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [FATAL] No servers configured



## *When* does this occur?

at initiating dnscrypt-proxy

## *Where* does it happen?

at terminal on initiating dnscrypt

## *How* do we replicate the issue?
<!-- Please list all the steps required to reliably replicate it, starting from a newly installed operating system -->

install
does not correctly initiate as a regular user, 
without sudo and gives the following result

[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Dropping privileges
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 22:57:18] [FATAL] listen udp 127.0.0.1:53: bind: permission denied

with sudo gives the following error,

[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] dnscrypt-proxy 2.1.5
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Dropping privileges
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Network connectivity detected
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [UDP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Now listening to 127.0.0.1:53 [TCP]
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-servers] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [odoh-relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [NOTICE] Source [relays] loaded
[2025-08-25 18:57:11] [FATAL] No servers configured



## Expected behavior (i.e. solution)

should initiate properly without sudo

## Other Comments

none

[welwood08]

Without your configuration file, I'll have to make a few assumptions...

• Regarding [FATAL] No servers configured:
  It looks like you've disabled sources.public-resolvers and enabled sources.odoh-servers and sources.odoh-relays. Have you also changed odoh_servers = false to odoh_servers = true? If not, dnscrypt-proxy is behaving as expected when you have not configured any servers and this is not a bug.

• Regarding [FATAL] listen udp 127.0.0.1:53: bind: permission denied:
  Without sudo (or other system configuration) you will be unable to bind to privileged port 53. If you don't know what this means, the simplest solution to running without sudo is to change listen_addresses = ['127.0.0.1:53'] and use a port above 1024 instead of 53. Again, dnscrypt-proxy is behaving as well as it can with the given configuration and this is not a bug.

Since this looks more like a support request than a bug, I'll be converting this issue to a discussion. If the above assumptions don't solve your problem, please provide more information.