systemd-resolved.service, systemd-resolved — Network Name Resolution manager
systemd-resolved.service
/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-resolved
systemd-resolved is a system service that provides network name resolution to local applications. It implements a caching and validating DNS/DNSSEC stub resolver, as well as an LLMNR resolver and responder. Local applications may submit network name resolution requests via three interfaces:
The native, fully-featured API systemd-resolved exposes on the bus. See the API Documentation for details. Usage of this API is generally recommended to clients as it is asynchronous and fully featured (for example, properly returns DNSSEC validation status and interface scope for addresses as necessary for supporting link-local networking).
The glibc getaddrinfo(3) API as defined by RFC3493 and its related resolver functions, including gethostbyname(3). This API is widely supported, including beyond the Linux platform. In its current form it does not expose DNSSEC validation status information however, and is synchronous only. This API is backed by the glibc Name Service Switch (nss(5)). Usage of the glibc NSS module nss-resolve(8) is required in order to allow glibc's NSS resolver functions to resolve host names via systemd-resolved.
Additionally, systemd-resolved provides a local DNS stub listener on IP address 127.0.0.53 on the local loopback interface. Programs issuing DNS requests directly, bypassing any local API may be directed to this stub, in order to connect them to systemd-resolved. Note however that it is strongly recommended that local programs use the glibc NSS or bus APIs instead (as described above), as various network resolution concepts (such as link-local addressing, or LLMNR Unicode domains) cannot be mapped to the unicast DNS protocol.
The DNS servers contacted are determined from the global settings in
/etc/systemd/resolved.conf
, the per-link static settings in
/etc/systemd/network/*.network
files, the per-link dynamic settings received over DHCP and any
DNS server information made available by other system services. See
resolved.conf(5) and
systemd.network(5) for details
about systemd's own configuration files for DNS servers. To improve compatibility,
/etc/resolv.conf
is read in order to discover configured system DNS servers, but only if it is
not a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf
(see below).
systemd-resolved synthesizes DNS resource records (RRs) for the following cases:
The local, configured hostname is resolved to all locally configured IP addresses ordered by their scope, or — if none are configured — the IPv4 address 127.0.0.2 (which is on the local loopback) and the IPv6 address ::1 (which is the local host).
The hostnames "localhost
" and
"localhost.localdomain
" (as well as any hostname
ending in ".localhost
" or ".localhost.localdomain
")
are resolved to the IP addresses 127.0.0.1 and ::1.
The hostname "gateway
" is
resolved to all current default routing gateway addresses,
ordered by their metric. This assigns a stable hostname to the
current gateway, useful for referencing it independently of the
current network configuration state.
The mappings defined in /etc/hosts
are resolved
to their configured addresses and back, but they will not affect lookups for
non-address types (like MX).
Lookup requests are routed to the available DNS servers and LLMNR interfaces according to the following rules:
Lookups for the special hostname
"localhost
" are never routed to the
network. (A few other, special domains are handled the same way.)
Single-label names are routed to all local
interfaces capable of IP multicasting, using the LLMNR
protocol. Lookups for IPv4 addresses are only sent via LLMNR on
IPv4, and lookups for IPv6 addresses are only sent via LLMNR on
IPv6. Lookups for the locally configured host name and the
"gateway
" host name are never routed to
LLMNR.
Multi-label names are routed to all local interfaces that have a DNS sever configured, plus the globally configured DNS server if there is one. Address lookups from the link-local address range are never routed to DNS.
If lookups are routed to multiple interfaces, the first successful response is returned (thus effectively merging the lookup zones on all matching interfaces). If the lookup failed on all interfaces, the last failing response is returned.
Routing of lookups may be influenced by configuring per-interface domain names. See systemd.network(5) for details. Lookups for a hostname ending in one of the per-interface domains are exclusively routed to the matching interfaces.
See the resolved D-Bus API
Documentation for information about the APIs systemd-resolved
provides.
/etc/resolv.conf
¶Three modes of handling /etc/resolv.conf
(see
resolv.conf(5)) are
supported:
A static file /usr/lib/systemd/resolv.conf
is provided that lists
the 127.0.0.53 DNS stub (see above) as only DNS server. This file may be symlinked from
/etc/resolv.conf
in order to connect all local clients that bypass local DNS APIs to
systemd-resolved. This mode of operation is recommended.
systemd-resolved maintains the
/run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf
file for compatibility with traditional Linux
programs. This file may be symlinked from /etc/resolv.conf
and is always kept up-to-date,
containing information about all known DNS servers. Note the file format's limitations: it does not know a
concept of per-interface DNS servers and hence only contains system-wide DNS server definitions. Note that
/run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf
should not be used directly by applications, but only
through a symlink from /etc/resolv.conf
. If this mode of operation is used local clients
that bypass any local DNS API will also bypass systemd-resolved and will talk directly to the
known DNS servers.
Alternatively, /etc/resolv.conf
may be managed by other packages, in which
case systemd-resolved will read it for DNS configuration data. In this mode of operation
systemd-resolved is consumer rather than provider of this configuration
file.
Note that the selected mode of operation for this file is detected fully automatically, depending on whether
/etc/resolv.conf
is a symlink to /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf
or
lists 127.0.0.53 as DNS server.
SIGUSR1
¶Upon reception of the SIGUSR1 process signal systemd-resolved will dump the contents of all DNS resource record caches it maintains into the system logs.
SIGUSR2
¶Upon reception of the SIGUSR2 process signal systemd-resolved will flush all caches it maintains. Note that it should normally not be necessary to request this explicitly – except for debugging purposes – as systemd-resolved flushes the caches automatically anyway any time the host's network configuration changes.