I recently tried to enable system-wide DNS over https on Fedora. To do so I had to to some research and found out how comfusing it is for the average user (and even experienced users) to change the settings. In fact there are multiple backends messing with system DNS at the same time.
Most major Linux distributions use systemd-resolved for DNS but there is no utility for changing its configuration.
The average user would still try to change DNS settings by editing /etc/relov.conf (which is overwritten and will not survive reboots) or changing settings in Network Manager.
Based on documentation of systemd-resolved, the standard way of adding custom DNS servers is putting so-called ‘drop-in’ files in /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d directory, especially when you want to use DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-https.
Modern browsers use their buit-in DNS settings which adds to the confusion.
I think this is one area that Linux needs more work and more standardization.
How do you think it should be fixed?
No software should EVER touch any DNS related configuration or file and no application should bring it’s own system for DNS request. Everything regarding DNS without any exception should be done by the application that sets up and handle the network connection.
Uhh good luck with that. If it were stored on magnetic media I’d suggest “a magnet and a very steady hand” but that doesn’t work so much for SSDs.