dnscrypt-proxy
dnscrypt-proxy is a DNS proxy with support for the encrypted DNS protocols DNS over HTTPS and DNSCrypt, which can be used to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and eavesdropping. dnscrypt-proxy is also compatible with DNSSEC.
Installation
Install the dnscrypt-proxy package.
Configuration
Startup
The service can be started in two mutually exclusive ways (i.e. only one of the two may be enabled):
- With the systemd service
dnscrypt-proxy.service
.- The
listen_addresses
option must be configured (e.g.listen_addresses = ['127.0.0.1:53', '[::1]:53']
) in the configuration file when using the service.
- The
- Through socket activation using
dnscrypt-proxy.socket
.- The
listen_addresses
option must be set to empty (i.e.listen_addresses = [ ]
) in the configuration file, since systemd is taking care of the socket configuration.
- The
Select resolver
By leaving server_names
commented out in the configuration file /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml
, dnscrypt-proxy will choose the fastest server from the sources already configured under [sources]
[3]. The lists will be downloaded, verified, and automatically updated [4]. Thus, configuring a specific set of servers is optional.
To manually set which server is used, edit /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml
and uncomment the server_names
variable, selecting one or more of the servers. For example, to use Cloudflare's servers:
server_names = ['cloudflare', 'cloudflare-ipv6']
A full list of resolvers is located at the upstream page or Github. If dnscrypt-proxy has run successfully on the system before, /var/cache/dnscrypt-proxy/public-resolvers.md
will also contain a list. Look at the description for servers note which validate DNSSEC, do not log, and are uncensored. These requirements can be configured globally with the require_dnssec
, require_nolog
, require_nofilter
options.
Disable any services bound to port 53
To see if any programs are using port 53, run:
$ ss -lp 'sport = :domain'
If the output contains more than the first line of column names, you need to disable whatever service is using port 53. One common culprit is systemd-resolved.service
(NetworkManager#Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.resolve1.service not found), but other network managers may have analogous components. You are ready to proceed once the above command outputs nothing more than the following line:
Netid State Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address:Port Peer Address:Port
Modify resolv.conf
Modify the resolv.conf file and replace the current set of resolver addresses with the address for localhost and options [5]:
nameserver ::1 nameserver 127.0.0.1 options edns0 single-request-reopen
Other programs may overwrite this setting; see resolv.conf#Overwriting of /etc/resolv.conf for details.
Start systemd service
Finally, start/enable the dnscrypt-proxy.service
unit or dnscrypt-proxy.socket
, depending on which method you chose above.
Tips and tricks
Local DNS cache configuration
cache = true
in your dnscrypt-proxy configuration fileIt is recommended to run dnscrypt-proxy as a forwarder for a local DNS cache if not using dnscrypt-proxy's cache feature; otherwise, every single query will make a round-trip to the upstream resolver. Any local DNS caching program should work. In addition to setting up dnscrypt-proxy, you must setup your local DNS cache program.
Change port
In order to forward queries from a local DNS cache, dnscrypt-proxy should listen on a port different from the default 53
, since the DNS cache itself needs to listen on 53
and query dnscrypt-proxy on a different port. Port number 53000
is used as an example in this section. In this example, the port number is larger than 1024 so dnscrypt-proxy is not required to be run by root.
There are two methods for changing the default port:
Socket method
Edit dnscrypt-proxy.socket
with the following contents:
[Socket] ListenStream= ListenDatagram= ListenStream=127.0.0.1:53000 ListenStream=[::1]:53000 ListenDatagram=127.0.0.1:53000 ListenDatagram=[::1]:53000
When queries are forwarded from the local DNS cache to 53000
, dnscrypt-proxy.socket
will start dnscrypt-proxy.service
.
Service method
Edit the listen_addresses
option in /etc/dnscrypt-proxy/dnscrypt-proxy.toml
with the following:
listen_addresses = ['127.0.0.1:53000', '[::1]:53000']
Example local DNS cache configurations
The following configurations should work with dnscrypt-proxy and assume that it is listening on port 53000
.
Unbound
Configure Unbound to your liking (in particular, see Unbound#Local DNS server) and add the following lines to the end of the server
section in /etc/unbound/unbound.conf
:
do-not-query-localhost: no forward-zone: name: "." forward-addr: ::1@53000 forward-addr: 127.0.0.1@53000
interface: 0.0.0.0@53
and access-control: your-network/subnet-mask allow
inside the server:
section so that the other computers can connect to the server. A client must be configured with nameserver address-of-your-server
in /etc/resolv.conf
.Restart unbound.service
to apply the changes.
dnsmasq
Configure dnsmasq as a local DNS cache. The basic configuration to work with dnscrypt-proxy:
/etc/dnsmasq.conf
no-resolv server=::1#53000 server=127.0.0.1#53000 listen-address=::1,127.0.0.1
If you configured dnscrypt-proxy to use a resolver with enabled DNSSEC validation, make sure to enable it also in dnsmasq:
/etc/dnsmasq.conf
conf-file=/usr/share/dnsmasq/trust-anchors.conf dnssec
Restart dnsmasq.service
to apply the changes.
pdnsd
Install pdnsd. A basic configuration to work with dnscrypt-proxy is:
/etc/pdnsd.conf
global { perm_cache = 1024; cache_dir = "/var/cache/pdnsd"; run_as = "pdnsd"; server_ip = 127.0.0.1; status_ctl = on; query_method = udp_tcp; min_ttl = 15m; # Retain cached entries at least 15 minutes. max_ttl = 1w; # One week. timeout = 10; # Global timeout option (10 seconds). neg_domain_pol = on; udpbufsize = 1024; # Upper limit on the size of UDP messages. } server { label = "dnscrypt-proxy"; ip = 127.0.0.1; port = 53000; timeout = 4; proxy_only = on; } source { owner = localhost; file = "/etc/hosts"; }
Restart pdnsd.service
to apply the changes.
Enable EDNS0
Extension Mechanisms for DNS that, among other things, allows a client to specify how large a reply over UDP can be.
Add the following line to your /etc/resolv.conf
:
options edns0
You may also wish to append the following to /etc/dnscrypt-proxy.conf
:
EDNSPayloadSize <bytes>
Where <bytes> is a number, the default size being 1252, with values up to 4096 bytes being purportedly safe. A value below or equal to 512 bytes will disable this mechanism, unless a client sends a packet with an OPT section providing a payload size.
Test EDNS0
Make use of the DNS Reply Size Test Server, use the drill command line tool to issue a TXT query for the name rs.dns-oarc.net:
$ drill rs.dns-oarc.net TXT
With EDNS0 supported, the "answer section" of the output should look similar to this:
rst.x3827.rs.dns-oarc.net. rst.x4049.x3827.rs.dns-oarc.net. rst.x4055.x4049.x3827.rs.dns-oarc.net. "2a00:d880:3:1::a6c1:2e89 DNS reply size limit is at least 4055 bytes" "2a00:d880:3:1::a6c1:2e89 sent EDNS buffer size 4096"