Proposal: DNS cache by default for ubuntu-desktop

[Bruno Girin]

On Wed, 2010-06-02 at 09:50 +0100, Conn O'Griofa wrote:
> Hi Kurt,
> 
[snip]

> As you can see from the community instructions, you need to edit your
> /etc/resolv.conf and add the local machine's address (127.0.0.1) as
> your first nameserver. This is a problem because any changes to this
> file will be overwritten by NetworkManager each time it initializes a
> new connection (which is warned in the commented section of the file).
> The only solution that I am aware of, is to edit your active network
> connection in NetworkManager's applet, change the setting from
> "Automatic (DHCP)" to "Automatic (DHCP) addresses only", and then
> manually input your DNS servers like so: "127.0.0.1, <your regular DNS
> server 1>, <your regular DNS server 1>".

And this in turn would break configurations where the DHCP server
provides the name of the DNS server to clients when they connect. Such a
configuration is extremely common for any network where people are
transient (public and semi-public networks like libraries, company
networks where users move from office to office, etc).


> 
> If we are going to integrate dnsmasq into the default installation it
> may serve us better to investigate the possibility of adding some kind
> of autodetection of the presence of dnsmasq to NetworkManager itself.
> We cannot expect users to manually edit their network connections for
> each new installation (or indeed, each new wireless network profile
> they create).

I second that: integrating whatever solution (like dnsmasq) with NM is
essential.


> 
> Let me also mention that dnsmasq has the capability of providing ICS
> (internet connection sharing) [3]. This would be an excellent feature
> to add to NetworkManager's graphical interface, which is yet another
> feature that competing operating systems provide by default.

It would be very nice indeed.

Bruno