Making per-link DNS servers added by Wireguard to systemd-resolved survive NetworkManager connection changes

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Update: the problem described in this article seems to be resolved in Fedora 36 (NetworkManager 1.38.0-2.fc36). It is still present in Fedora 35 (NetworkManager 1.32.12-2.fc35).

The title of this blog post may seem familiar to some, as I solved this problem for OpenVPN earlier. I won’t repeat myself here, so please check the OpenVPN article to understand why this is happening.

Wireguard servers - unlike OpenVPN servers - are not able to push any settings such as DNS servers to their clients. However, Wireguard client itself is able to run PostUp commands to configure per-link DNS. The same approach can be used with OpenVPN “up” scripts as well, if you prefer having full control at the client-side. Here’s a Wireguard example:

Making per-link DNS servers pushed from OpenVPN to systemd-resolved survive NetworkManager connection changes

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Update: the problem described in this article seems to be resolved in Fedora 36 (NetworkManager 1.38.0-2.fc36). It is still present in Fedora 35 (NetworkManager 1.32.12-2.fc35).

Update: there a companion article about solving this problem for Wireguard in here.

In an the Manage Linux client DNS settings in OpenVPN and Wireguard article we described how to use the update-systemd-resolved script to update systemd-resolved per-link DNS servers automatically based on DNS servers pushed from an OpenVPN server. This is very convenient if you have to be connected to multiple remote locations each with their own DNS servers and zones.

Network-Manager on Puppeteers Oy

Making per-link DNS servers added by Wireguard to systemd-resolved survive NetworkManager connection changes

Making per-link DNS servers pushed from OpenVPN to systemd-resolved survive NetworkManager connection changes