How to Set Up a Local DNS Proxy

Table of Contents

# Installing a proxy

First you need to install a proxy and configure it to your liking. I'd recommend either dnss or dnsmasq.

# Creating a service

Then start and enable the service. If the package doesn't provide a service, or if you built it from source, you'll have to create a service yourself. Here's how to do it with systemd. If you're not using systemd then I'm sure you're competent enough to figure it out yourself.

Copy this file to /etc/systemd/system/dnss.service:

[Unit]
Description=DNS proxy

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dnss

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then run

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable dnss
sudo systemctl start dnss

# Configure your network manager

## No network manager

If you're not using a network manager, or if your network manager doesn't overwrite resolv.conf, you can simply edit /etc/resolv.conf like so:

nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver ::1

## NetworkManager

If you're using NetworkManager, you need to edit /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf:

[main]
dns=none

Then configure as if you had No network manager and run nmcli general reload.

## ConnMan

If you're using ConnMan, you need to disable the built-in DNS proxy by adding the --nodnsproxy flag when starting it. See the ArchWiki for more information.

Then you need to set the "immutable file attribute" on resolv.conf using chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf to prevent ConnMan from changing it.

Then configure as if you had No network manager and restart the ConnMan service.