A bit confusing I agree. Just a little bit research.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Most major Linux distributions use systemd-resolved for DNS but there is no utility for changing its configuration.
Because it's systemd. You take it or you take it. Brought to you by the same people who brought PulseAudio and GNOME 3.
The average user would still try to change DNS settings by editing /etc/relov.conf (which is overwritten and will not survive reboots)
True, but at least by this point it is documented everywhere (at least on Arch and Debian) and if you want to play around with resolv.conf their go-to interface is to install resolvconf and edit only the base or head files.
How do you think it should be fixed?
IMO people should just install and learn to use dnsmasq / bind9. They're there precisely to cover most cases (including forwarding local DNS queries to DoH, or having your own intranet, etc).
I wouldn’t call it a mess. There’s a reason it’s not standard. It’s because Linux is about having choices. Linux users have such a variety of use cases and there are a zillion different kinds of hardware it runs on. There’s no one thing that works for everyone.
I think this flexibility is a big part of what makes Linux special but also what makes it difficult for newcomers. The documentation on all the various software is typically very good to excellent. The harder part is figuring out which choice to make in the first place.
I don’t really have any answers except to take it all in and be more willing to do some research than some other platforms may require.
System-wide DoH is sort of a power user thing to begin with so other platforms will likely be similar. I think you would probably be using some kind of app to do it on Windows or Mac.
By the way, you might want to take a look at stubby for your situation. I did something similar a few weeks back and that’s what I used. It’s runs a little local DNS proxy that forwards requests to your upstream servers. Then you would set your DNS server to 127.0.0.1 in NetworkManager or whatever you’re using. You have to change like 3 lines in the default stubby config a typical distro may provide to make it work.