MacOS DNS Search Domain

MacOS DNS Search Domain

[Sune Mølgaard]

Hi all,

Being in the process of deploying, and being very happy with both
answers to questions, and, generally, performance, ease of
administration etc., I seem to be facing a slight problem.

Using wg-quick, via SystemD, on Linux, I can have multiple, in my case
two, "DNS =" entries in my client config, one with an IP address of the
DNS server to utilise, and the second with a domain name, to be applied
as the "DNS Search Domain".

This works as expected.

Under MacOS, using the GUI client from the app store, "DNS =" entries
with domain names are not accepted (is this a bug or expected
behaviour?), but I have found suggestions to issue `networksetup
-setsearchdomain XX YOUR-SEARCH.DOMAIN`
(https://www.reddit.com/r/WireGuard/comments/dlh65m/resolving_search_domains_on_a_mac/).

Substituting the correct entries for XX and YOUR-SEARCH.DOMAIN with
correct values work, inasmuch as `networksetup -getsearchdomain XX`
indicates that the correct DNS Search Domain is set correctly for the
interface, but it does not, however, seem to work IRL, meaning that
requests to a mere hostname, as opposed to an FQDN, within the search
domain result in lookup failures.

First of all, I would like to know if anyone knows how to make DNS
Search Domain work in conjunction with MacOS.

Secondly, I would like to pose the question of whether there is a bug,
code- or documentation-wise regarding how to make it work, and, thirdly,
I would like to ask if the official, MacOS, GUI client could,
conceivably, be made to accept "DNS =" entries with domain names, making
them work like wg-quick on Linux, meaning setting those entries as DNS
Search Domains.

Best regards,

Sune Mølgaard

-- 
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis
easier to keep holidays than commandments.
- Benjamin Franklin

Re: MacOS DNS Search Domain

[Yoshimi Takano]

Hello

I just wanted to mention that I ran in to the same issue.

The MacOS client rejects DNS settings containing non-IP hostnames such as

DNS = 1.2.3.4, example.search.domain.com

with the error "Interface’s DNS servers must be a list of 
comma-separated IP addresses".

According to the wg-quick man page, non-IP hostnames (to be interpreted 
as search domains) are allowed for the DNS setting.

The Windows client accepts these fine.

Best regards
   Yoshimi