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Accepted
Steve Lorimer
Asked: 2018-10-23 06:41:56 +0800 CST

Definitive guide to network and dns configuration on Ubuntu 18.04 workstation?

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I'm finding it difficult to find reliable up-to-date information on how networking configuration is managed on Ubuntu 18.04 workstation.

I believe in 16.04 dnsmasq was the new kid on the block, and it took over duties from resolved

I recently found out about netplan though. This link refers to netplan for managing DNS, but it seems to only really apply to ubuntu-server, as the netplan configuration file on my workstation offloads everything to NetworkManager:

$ cat  /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml 
# Let NetworkManager manage all devices on this system
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager

I guess I'm just confused as to what is responsible for what, there is a lot of confusing information about ifupdown, resolved, dnsmasq, netplan, nm, etc.

How can I get reliable, up-to-date information on whatever the state-of-the-art is for all things networking in Ubuntu 18.04?

networking network-manager 18.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    In short... you actually have multiple questions...

    NetworkManager vs Netplan

    • In older versions of Ubuntu, NetworkManager was king.

    • In newer versions of Ubuntu, Netplan and systemd-resolved tries to be king.

    Unless you're running a server, I'd recommend staying with NetworkManager.

    $ cat /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml 

    # Let NetworkManager manage all devices on this system
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: NetworkManager
    • further netplan examples can be seen here.

    dnsmasq vs systemd-resolved

    • In older versions of Ubuntu, dnsmasq was king.

    • In newer versions of Ubuntu, systemd-resolved tries to be king.

    If you must run them both, you'll want to modify the following, or DNS errors will occur.

    Do a ps auxc | grep -i dns and ps auxc | grep -i resolv and look for dnsmasq and systemd-resolved, and if both are running, you need to disable the DNS part of systemd-resolved by editing /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and...

    change:

    #DNSStubListener=yes

    to:

    DNSStubListener=no

    /etc/resolv.conf

    • Do NOT manually edit this file.

    • if this file contains 127.0.0.1, then dnsmasq is managing this file.

    • if this file contains 127.0.0.53, then systemd-resolved is managing this file.

    • if you wish to add specific DNS servers, use the GUI for "Wired Connection", or your wireless connection profile.

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