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What's the point of dnsmasq in NetworkManager?

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 734 / 3 Years ago, thu, september 2, 2021, 7:07:21

I very recently came to realize that the caching is disabled by default on the dnsmasq that is integrated with NetworkManager. In my mind, that defeats the point and makes dnsmasq a redundant layer in name resolution.

Obviously, I must be missing something - what is the purpose of dnsmasq in NM?

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2 Years ago

answered 3 Years ago oatglori · Accepted Answer

The point is that switching nameservers is annoying. /etc/resolv.conf only gets read once when you start an application (technically when you do the first lookup), so if you change nameservers (because you moved from wireless to wired to 3g and back etc.), you will need to restart applications that need to look up names (such as browsers).

This is mitigated by using the local resolver, which does respond to these changes in a timely fashion, allowing applications to remain stupid and only query the nameserver on localhost.