I recently tried to enable system-wide DNS over https on Fedora. To do so I had to to some research and found out how comfusing it is for the average user (and even experienced users) to change the settings. In fact there are multiple backends messing with system DNS at the same time.

Most major Linux distributions use systemd-resolved for DNS but there is no utility for changing its configuration.

The average user would still try to change DNS settings by editing /etc/relov.conf (which is overwritten and will not survive reboots) or changing settings in Network Manager.

Based on documentation of systemd-resolved, the standard way of adding custom DNS servers is putting so-called ‘drop-in’ files in /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d directory, especially when you want to use DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-https.

Modern browsers use their buit-in DNS settings which adds to the confusion.

I think this is one area that Linux needs more work and more standardization.

How do you think it should be fixed?

  • Kekin
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Just between yesterday and today I was struggling with this, to get DoH or DoT working, but Network Manager would override /etc/resolv.conf. At least I figured out how to stop NM from modifying the DNS.

    I tried my putting my dns settings in /etc/systemd/resolv.conf, as suggested by Nextdns setup page, but that didn’t seem to work, at least on Tumbleweed. On my Debian laptop running as a headless server, the /etc/systemd/resolv.conf does work.

    I’m currently with Stubby, and it’s working at least, but I would’ve liked to figure out the systemd-resolved way on Tumbleweed.