Writing resolv.conf issues with broken symlink

[Matthew Starr <mstarr hedonline com>]

I am building NetworkManager 1.8.0 using buildroot with SysV init on an ARM embedded device.  Buildroot has 
the /etc/resolv.conf file as a symlink that points to /tmp/resolv.conf.  When I use NetworkManager with this 
resolv.conf symlink configuration, DNS lookups do no work because NetworkManger is not writing to the 
resolv.conf file or the file pointed to by the symlink.

I tried updating the NetworkManager.conf file to include "rc-manager=file" since the man page states that 
NetworkManager will then follow the symlink and write the contents of the resolv.conf there.  Unfortunately 
this does not work when the destination file the symlink points to does not exist.  In this situation the 
symlink points to a file in /tmp which is a tmpfs file system (RAM based) and wiped clean on each boot to 
help support  a read-only root file system or doing minimal writes to the root file system.

Is there a specific reason NetworkManager doesn't create the file the /etc/resolv.conf symlink points to if 
it doesn't exist?  If there isn't a reason, could NetworkManager be updated to create the file pointed to by 
the /etc/resolv.conf symlink?

Best regards,
 
Matthew Starr