dns=dnsmasq, directing unqualified names to DHCP-provided-DNS-servers on a specific interface

[Samuel Harmer <me samuelharmer com>]

Dear List,

Thoroughly enjoying NetworkManager (NM)! Just one thing I could not find an obvious method to achieve so thought I would double-check.

I am trying to work out how to define (in NM settings) an interface should be used for unqualified lookups. Specifically unqualified, I can't make use of search->fully-qualified as there are private web servers that expect the browser to be requesting an unqualified hostname. I can't alter this bizarre (imo) design choice.

With pure dnsmasq I can use `[--]server=//192.168.n.n` and `[--]server=/local/192.168.n.n` to specify a DNS server to send both unqualified and private domain lookups to.

With NM I can specify `nmcli [...] set ipv4.dns-search ~local` to have private zones looked up via NM's dnsmasq (assuming `dns=dnsmasq`), but I can't see a way to direct (all) unqualified lookups to the interface (or rather the DNS server(s) provided by the DHCP server on the interface).

The interface is not used as a default gateway, but I am guessing I could fiddle around with adding back in `~.` and (misusing) ipv4.dns-priority so all unqualified names go to a private DNS server(s) first, but this feels like a cludge and would (I guess) still result in the unqualified names being forwarded on to public DNS servers should one not exist in the private DNS servers.

A less-cludgy inelegant alternative would be to `echo "server-file=/etc/NetworkManager/unqualified.servers" > /etc/NetworkManager/dnsmasq.d/unqualified`, then use a dispatcher to populate unqualified.servers, followed by SIGHUP NetworkManager's dnsmasq instance.

Neither option feels right.

Is this a missing feature or have I missed something?

Thanks and regards,

Samuel Harmer