As delivered in rcpl14: bind - 9.10.2-P4-r0 dhcp - 4.3.2-r0 1. In dhcp/client/dhclient.c:972 signal handlers are registered. (ctx->running is 0 at this point) 2. ...we get a signal (SIGKILL) after that 3. dhcp_signal_handler() at dhcp/omapip/isclib.c:337 is called 4. ....that calls ics_app_ctxsuspend( ) at bind9/lib/isc/app_api.c:114 ....that calls ics__app_ctxsuspend ) at bind9/lib/sc/unix/app.c:846 ... that aborts on REQUIRE(ctx->running) (ctx->running is set later when somewhere in dispatch() (called from dhclient.c:987)