This is complicated indeed. I also spotted this in the logs during the long wait: Oct 25 21:16:07 xenial-squid-dnsmasq systemd[1]: nss-lookup.target: Job nss-lookup.target/start failed with result 'dependency'.
and nss-lookup.target has something related to dnsmasq: root@xenial-squid-dnsmasq:~# systemctl status nss-lookup.target ● nss-lookup.target - Host and Network Name Lookups Loaded: loaded (/etc/insserv.conf.d/dnsmasq; static; vendor preset: enabled) Drop-In: /run/systemd/generator/nss-lookup.target.d └─50-hard-dependency-dnsmasq-$named.conf Active: active since Thu 2018-10-25 21:19:41 UTC; 53s ago Docs: man:systemd.special(7) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1761096 Title: dnsmasq starts with error on Ubuntu Xenial amd64 when squid installed To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dnsmasq/+bug/1761096/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs