DNS Entries are resolved in different order than specified in config

[micsport13]

I was setting up a local DNS server to route my traffic, but since it's a test, I decided to add a fallback dns when executing the command nordvpn set dns in the event my local DNS server is down. It appears that the dns search order is in the alphabetical order of the DNS servers, not the order it's provided in the CLI. So, if I have a DNS Server located at 172.168.2.15 and I specify 1.1.1.1 as the backup DNS, all queries go through 1.1.1.1 since it comes first alphabetically, even if I executed nordvpn set dns 172.168.2.15 1.1.1.1.

Reproduction

1. Running DNS server on 10.0.0.106
2. Set DNS servers on NordVPN to 10.0.0.106 and 1.1.1.1
3. NSLookup google.com
4. Output

nslookup google.com
Server:         1.1.1.1
Address:        1.1.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.com
Address: 192.178.49.206
Name:   google.com
Address: 2607:f8b0:402a:80d::200e

Expected Output

Server:         10.0.0.106
Address:        10.0.0.106#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   google.com
Address: 172.217.0.78
Name:   google.com
Address: 2607:f8b0:4025:810::200e

So it appears that currently there are 2 options: Either ensure your DNS server never goes down and only set 1 DNS server in the nordvpn config or add a DNS server that has a higher IP address than the local DNS so that NordVPN chooses the local DNS before falling back to the secondary DNS (or Tertiary for that matter)

[mariusSincovici]

Hi,
thanks for your feedback.

I've managed to reproduce the issue and register a bug on our side.

If there are 2 DNS servers into resolv.conf and if the first is down then the resolver will jump automatically to the second, after retrying several times the first server. But this will slowdown the system.

Until then there is a workaround for /etc/resolv.conf. When the file is immutable NordVPN application will not change it. But this would mean that you'll have to manage the file content manually. To make the file immutable sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf.

Thanks