Configure Dnsmasq To Query Different Nameservers For Different Domains

When connecting to a VPN you may have a DNS server which serves for a particular domain. For example when connected to your companies VPN, your local DNS config in /etc/resolv.conf is updated with: nameserver 192.168.1.1

The DNS server 192.168.1.1 is your companies internal DNS server which resolves admin.example.org to 192.168.1.100 You need to access admin.example.org on 192.168.1.100 but don’t necessarily want to have all DNS queries go to 192.168.1.1 You also don’t want manage /etc/hosts entries which can become stale over time.

dnsmasq a lightweight DNS and DHCP service can help. Simply install dnsmasq, starting off with a simple config.

listen-address=127.0.0.1
bind-interfaces
conf-dir=/etc/dnsmasq.d/

Create /etc/dnsmasq.d/example.org.conf

address=/vpn.example.org/198.51.100.100
server=/example.org/192.168.1.1

• line one returns 198.51.100.100 for the host vpn.example.org
• line two specifies 192.168.1.1 as the upstream DNS server for all other example.org queries such as admin.example.org

Reload the dnsmasq service.

systemctl restart dnsmasq

And finally update /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver 127.0.0.1

Now your local resolver clients will use dnsmasq as a DNS server with dnsmasq only forwarding queries for example.org to the upstream DNS server 192.168.1.1